


Corinthians

by drown-yourdarlings (lorcleis)



Series: CorinthVerse [1]
Category: Vampire Academy & Related Fandoms
Genre: F/M, M/M, Next-Gen, Political Unrest, Rogue Dhampir Society, father-daughter bonding
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-01-31
Updated: 2017-10-09
Packaged: 2018-09-21 04:03:03
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 12
Words: 44,515
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9530708
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lorcleis/pseuds/drown-yourdarlings
Summary: One month ago, a woman named Stasla Belikova died in the Ural Mountains. Belikova was a ghost according to Court. She didn’t exist in the eyes of any database they put her name into, but what was a guardian with hundreds of molnija marks doing in a remote village on the Kazakh border?A young dhampir breaks into the queen’s bedchambers on a mission: someone inside Court killed her mother and she wants to find out who, starting with the decades-old murder of a guardian named Rose Hathaway.





	1. Happiness

“Do you want one egg or two in your omelette?” Rose called from the kitchen. She had cracked one egg into the bowl already and was poised to crack another, hand at the ready.

A pat of butter sizzled in the pan to her left.

“Just two?” came Dimitri’s voice from the bedroom. Sunshine streamed in from the slants in their bedroom blinds. The bed was messy and unmade, with clothes strewn about the floor.

“Fine, you get three.” Rose smiled and cracked two more eggs into the bowl, beating them with a whisk before pouring the eggs into the pan. They popped and sizzled. “But you’re picking up more eggs after your shift today!” she called over her shoulder.

Dimitri walked into the kitchen with his tie askew and his shoes untied. He wrapped his arms around Rose’s waist as she was cooking and placed a kiss above her ear. “Now who told you it was safe for you to cook?”

“Christian taught me!” Rose protested. She leaned back into him. “And I haven’t managed to burn the house down yet.”

Dimitri chuckled. “Yet.”

Rose swiveled in his arms to face him with a grin on her face. She fiddled with his tie for a moment before placing her hands on his shoulders. “If you’re so culinarily inclined, comrade, you should make breakfast.”

“Oh I would,” Dimitri said. He picked Rose up and placed her on the counter next to the stove in one swift move. “But then we’d never get to have moments like these.”

She wrapped her legs around his waist. “You’re so thoughtful, Mr. Belikov.”

“The feeling’s mutual, Mrs. Belikova.” Dimitri grinned and leaned in to kiss Rose’s neck.

“Oh, I will never get used to that,” Rose said. The light caught the ring on her hand; a beautiful white gold masterpiece that had belonged to the Belikov family for as long as anyone could remember.

“To what?”

Rose encircled Dimitri’s face in her hands and looked into his dark eyes. “Being married to the best guardian on the planet.”

Dimitri smiled. “No, Roza. That’s my privilege.”

She leaned forward to kiss him and the world around her disappeared completely. It had only been a few years since they’d been married, but Rose was filled with so much love, it surprised her every day. The sheer idea that she had attained something she’d fought so long and hard for blew her mind. She went crazy every day simply waking up to find Dimitri in her bed.

_Beep. Beep. Beep._

“Oh shit--” Rose snapped out of her reverie and jumped down from the counter.

The pan with the omelette in it had overcooked and was letting off smoke.

“Get the fire extinguisher!” she shouted frantically.

“No, just take it off of the burner!”

“It’s on _fire,_ Dimitri!”

“I _see that_ , Roza!”

“So get the goddamn fire extinguisher!”

“We don’t have a fire extinguisher--”

_Beep. Be--_

The fire alarm cut off abruptly. The pan, while still smoking slightly, was no longer on fire. A sigh of relief left Rose and Dimitri’s bodies.

Rose slapped Dimitri on the shoulder. “You idiot!”

“What? It extinguished itself,” Dimitri said.

“Whatever,” Rose grumbled. She fixed his tie. “Go to work. We’re going to be late.”

Dimitri leaned in and kissed her on the forehead. “Yes, ma’am.”

* * *

There wasn’t much to be done now that Lissa and Christian lived mostly within the boundaries of Court. Rose kept her place at Lissa’s side, and Dimitri at Christian’s. Unlike the old days, they didn’t get up to much trouble anymore. 

Oftentimes, Dimitri was with Christian as he went around to different academies across the world giving speeches on the dangers of Strigoi and Dimitri was often asked to speak as well, but he normally declined. Christian’s place as an advocate for using Moroi in combat and helping to prevent Moroi teenagers from turning Strigoi earned him both respect and disdain from the various royals living at Court.

Rose had loved living with Lissa as they went through college, but also loved not having to worry about finals once they graduated. She shared the queen with three others on the royal guardian team, often working night shifts when Dimitri was away with Christian. Lissa originally had eight people guarding her, but decided to send half of them to Moroi who lived in high risk areas because her need wasn’t as great as theirs. There were so many guardians inside Court that it seemed pointless.

“Sleep well?” Lissa asked. She was settled in her office in preparation for her morning meetings. Christian sat on one of the many couches that dotted the office, typing away at his computer as he worked on a lecture for Faraway Prep, a day school on the west coast.

“She burnt breakfast,” Dimitri said.

“Comrade!” Rose gasped. “I thought you were on my side here.”

“I’m honestly not surprised,” Christian said. “She was a terrible student when I tried to teach her. She burnt water.”

“Hey!” Rose cuffed him on the ear. “At least I’m trying, right?”

“Trying, but not succeeding.” Lissa tried to contain a smile.

“Okay, fine, everyone can shit on Rose today, but I’ll get the last laugh this weekend when I...” Rose tapped a drum roll on the edge of Lissa’s desk. “...cook dinner.”

Christian and Dimitri both pulled faces.

“C’mon,” Rose said. “Lissa’s going to help.”

Lissa nodded distractedly. “Uh, yeah.”

“Well, we’re leaving,” Christian said. He picked up his laptop and gestured for Dimitri to follow him. “I have a meeting with the headmaster of St Basil’s today—he flew in just for this meeting, so it better be important. Then we’re off to Oregon.”

“Bye,” Rose said, waving. “Pick me up something Paul Bunyan-related.”

Christian shook his head and left, Dimitri on his tail.

“Want to buy take-out and put it in pots to make it look like we cooked?” Lissa asked.

“I thought you’d never ask,” Rose replied. She pulled her hair up into a ponytail and sat down on the chair next to Lissa’s desk. “So what’s on the agenda today, boss?”

Lissa smiled. “Nothing too taxing, don’t worry. I have to hear some people air their grievances in the throne room for most of your shift, then it’s packing to go back to St Vladimir’s tomorrow.”

“Ugh, don’t remind me,” Rose said with a grimace. “I have a love-hate relationship with that place.”

“I can’t just skip the scholastic address, can I?” Lissa asked. “I’m almost done with my speech. All of the new students will be enthralled.”

“Enthralled? Really?” Rose raised an eyebrow. “I remember falling asleep at those back in the day.”

“Well at least you’ll be awake for this one,” Lissa said, shooting Rose a wry smile.

“Yeah, because I’m paid to.” Rose stood from her seat, smoothing down her uniform. “Money: the great motivator.”

Rose liked working as Lissa’s guardian—it was what she’d been doing since she was young, anyway. It felt natural to be at her side, and even better, Rose liked doing it. It was rare that Rose _enjoyed_ protecting someone; the other royals had antiquated mindsets. As much as Lissa was trying to change the views Moroi held, it was slow going.

Lissa stood from her desk and adjusted the small circlet on her head. “Ready?”

“Always,” Rose answered.

* * *

“They are _starving_ , Your Majesty,” a Moroi woman pleaded. She had entered the room half an hour ago and waited her turn in the line with royals talking about rivalries and dhampir asking for better training equipment. “We live so far from Court; there’s nowhere for us to find jobs." 

Lissa nodded. “We will have a guardian accompany you back to your town to assess the situation.”

Rose clenched her jaw. That was what Lissa told people when it was outside of her realm of power. Despite being queen, she couldn’t fix everything.

“Thank you, Your Majesty.” There were tears in her eyes as she curtseyed. “Thank you very much.”

“You’re welcome,” said Lissa. She smiled tightly. “Send my regards to your family.”

The woman left the throne room in a hurry. The guardians seemed to startle her, which would make sense. There were barely any dhampir guardians the further from Court one was, unless there were royals living nearby. Since a majority of royals took up residence at Court instead of the outside world, nearly the entire dhampir population was concentrated there. It was something Lissa was trying to resolve, but the royal families kept their guardians close, Lissa included.

“Has it really gotten that bad?” Rose whispered into Lissa’s ear.

“Yes,” Lissa said. “We’re not sure how to help them, but once we assess the situation it should be easier.”

“You’d think we’d have... vampire welfare or something,” Rose replied.

Lissa simply chuckled as the next person in line reached her throne.

A Moroi man, clearly royal and clearly young, bowed before Lissa’s throne. He was a gawky sort of tall, with all of his limbs pulled in odd directions. He had large ears and a very slim figure. The suit he wore looked all at once too large, yet too short for his stature.

“Your Majesty,” he said. “My name is Robert Badica and I would like to propose a new law.”

Lissa smiled diplomatically. “Thank you for coming today, but I’m afraid we don’t deal with legislature in these meetings.”

“I’m aware of this.” He wrung his hands, clearly nervous. “But it is more of a suggestion, really. A guideline.”

Lissa narrowed her eyes at him. “Proceed.”

“I would like to propose the outlawing of dhampir-dhampir marriages,” he said.

A few gasps came from the assembled line behind Robert. Rose nearly burst out laughing.

“I beg your pardon?” Lissa asked. She couldn’t believe what she had just heard.

“My family may be royal, but I am from a much lower line than the rest of the Badica family,” Robert continued. “My father could not afford to get a guardian despite the work he does. He was killed last year in a Strigoi attack on our family home.”

“That is very tragic, Mr. Badica, but I cannot outlaw an entire species from marrying each other,” Lissa said, obviously agitated. “That’s against many of our laws that are already in place. One of my personal guardians is married to another dhampir; I cannot deny anyone that right.”

“But we are in a dhampir crisis,” Robert pleaded. “Dhampirs cannot have children together, so therefore, if dhampir continue to marry each other, our races will become extinct.”

A murmur spread throughout the room. Despite the radical notion behind his request, Robert Badica’s reasoning seemed to resonate with other Moroi. Rose had known that the Moroi were in need of more guardians, but she didn’t think it would progress this far. It was too much.

“Enough.” Lissa stood from her throne. She turned to Robert. “Thank you for your time, Mr. Badica, but we will not be taking your suggestion into consideration. Please escort Mr. Badica off the premises.”

Guardians appeared at either side of Robert. He attempted to evade their grasp.

“We’re dying, Queen Vasilisa!” He raised his voice as the guardians dragged him from the room. “Don’t kill your own people!”

The door slammed shut, leaving behind a deafeningly silent throne room.

* * *

Robert Badica’s words continued to haunt Rose days later  when she and Lissa were in the armoured vehicle that transported the queen to St Vladimir’s. Was Rose’s relationship really seen as that much of a disgrace to the royal Moroi of Court? She knew that dhampir marriages were few and far between, but it wasn’t as uncommon as a Moroi or a Dhampir marrying a human. 

“What if dhampirs could have children?” Rose asked. She was sitting in the seat directly to the right of Lissa, with her other guardians occupying the front seats.

“What?” Lissa asked, confused.

“I said, what if dhampirs could have children with each other?” Rose repeated.

“They can’t, Rose,” Lissa laid her hand on Rose’s. “That’s just how the world works.”

There was a feeling that was nagging Rose, though. She couldn’t shake the idea that it was possible, that maybe someday dhampirs could make a family.

“But if it was possible,” Rose said quickly. “What do you think would happen?”

“Well,” Lissa thought for a moment. “The baby would become an instant celebrity. Everyone would want to see it. They’d be a marvel of science.”

Rose became silent, lost in her thoughts. She didn’t want to ruminate any more than she already had, but the very idea of a child with dhampir-dhampir parentage gave her hope.

“Why do you ask?” Lissa said. She gave Rose’s hand a squeeze.

Rose smiled briefly and looked straight ahead. “No reason.”

The car jolted to a sudden stop as the headlights revealed a tree that had fallen down in the middle of the road. They were still fifteen minutes out from St Vladimir’s and it was the middle of the night, leaving no chance for the human authorities to come out and remove the tree.

“I bet if we all picked it up, we could move it from the road,” said Oliver, the guardian in the driver’s seat.

Rose peered out into the darkness with narrowed eyes. “Maybe.”

“Hey, it’s not a half bad idea,” said Annabelle, the other guardian in the front seat. “We’re so close to St Vladimir’s anyway.”

Lissa nudge Rose’s arm. “Go. I’ll be fine in the car. Besides, it’s safer than taking me to a human motel and waiting until sunrise, right?”

Rose was still skeptical. There was something suspicious about a fallen tree when there hadn’t been a storm recently, but the road was constantly protected by guardians from the school.

“Okay, but we do it as quickly as possible. We shouldn’t be late for the assembly.”

Rose signalled to Annabelle and Oliver and they exited the SUV, locking it behind them. Rose could barely see Lissa through the deeply tinted glass; she looked so odd sitting in the car alone. Ever since she had become queen, she was rarely ever alone at any point during the day because of increased security. Lissa was always her strongest when surrounded by the people in her life.

“Let’s get this over, shall we?” Rose asked as they approached the log. “Oliver, you take the skinny side, Annabelle and I have the fat side.”

“You mean the trunk?” Oliver asked.

“Yeah, yeah, smartass. Hop to it.”

Annabelle positioned herself opposite Rose and they nodded, signalling to lift the tree out of the way. Rose struggled to pick it up and they ended up letting it bounce back towards the ground.

“Shit, that’s heavy,” Annabelle said.

The three were reassessing the tree when Rose noticed something towards the bottom. She ran her hand along the portion where the tree had broken off of its roots and a chilling feeling ran down her spine.

The tree trunk hadn’t just fallen—it’d been cut.

“Back to the car,” Rose said sternly.

“What?” Oliver whipped his head up.

“I said, get back to the car.” Rose kept her voice measured and quiet with much difficulty. If anyone was lying in wait in the woods, screaming wasn’t the answer. “We have to leave. _Now_.”

Annabelle stuck herself to Rose’s side and said in just above a whisper, “What’s going on?”

“The tree was cut down,” Rose said. Her eyes darted to the trees, but nothing seemed to be moving. “Someone planted it there.”

“Motel 6, then?” Annabelle asked, unlocking the car.

“It’s the only one in town.”

As Annabelle opened the door to the car, a figure shot out of the woods and launched itself at her. Annabelle was thrown across the hood of the car and set upon by a tall man with pale skin and red eyes that glittered like rubies.

Strigoi.

“Fuck,” Rose said underneath her breath. She slammed the car door shut and darted to where Annabelle was engaged in a fight with the Strigoi, who had been joined by two others. “Lissa! Stay in the car!”

Annabelle had fought off one, but the others weren’t waiting their turns and had nearly overpowered her. Oliver managed to stake one and Rose pulled the other off of Annabelle’s back.

“Thanks,” Annabelle shouted back at Rose.

“Don’t mention it,” Rose said.

More Strigoi streamed in from the woods, the sound of fighting attracting them to the group. There was no way of telling if this attack had been planned.  It was possible that Strigoi could have been nesting nearby. Regardless, the road was much more dangerous than previously thought and all they could do know was fight for their lives.

Three Strigoi broke off from the group and went for the car. Thankfully it was locked, but that wouldn’t last very long.

“Get to the car!” Rose shouted. She staked a Strigoi and it went down, but another took its place as Rose pulled her stake from the body. “I’ll distract them! Just go!”

Annabelle and Oliver hesitated, not wanting to leave Rose, but they made their way towards the car, not wanting to disobey a direct order. They staked the few Strigoi attempting to break into the car and got it started.

The sea of Strigoi hadn’t gotten any smaller and they were beginning to close in on all sides. Everywhere Rose turned was another Strigoi wanting to grab a piece of her and despite her training, she didn’t think that she could take all of them even on her greatest day.

 _Beep_.

Oliver laid into the car horn. The headlights of the car illuminated Rose surrounded by the attackers.

“Get out! Turn back!” She shouted. One Strigoi grabbed a hold of Rose’s arm and another her leg. She couldn’t fight them off any longer. “Save Lissa!”

She fought tooth and claw to escape them to no avail. Her fingers disappeared last; outstretched to one of the only people on earth that she loved. Rose’s voice pierced the air for the last time.

“ _Save Lissa_.”

* * *

Half a mile away, a group of dhampirs picked up Strigoi activity on their tracker.

“This thing is on the fritz,” said one, showing the team leader. “What should we do?”

“If that’s the one we’ve been tracking, let’s suit up,” the team leader said. “No use delaying the inevitable.”

They made their way to the main road, where a significant number of the Strigoi had already run off, but they staked the others with little difficulty. The Strigoi had left quite the mess, including a tree in the middle of the road. The leader made a note to tell the city in the morning to remove it.

“Hey Josiah!” A second member of the team motioned for the leader to join them at the side of the road. “I think I’ve got something.”

There was a woman laying at the base of the tree, right by the edge of the road. She had numerous bites and there was no telling whether she was alive or not. Josiah knelt by her side and inspected her injuries. He glanced at the back of her neck.

“Take her back to base,” he said. “Then wrap all of this up. We return to Corinth at dawn.”

“Huh,” said one of the medics, once the woman was settled on the stretcher.

“What is it?” asked the other.

The medic pushed the woman’s hair to the side to reveal a set of markings on the back of her neck. They disappeared into the collar of her shirt.

“She’s got a promise mark,” the medic said. He pulled the back of the woman’s shirt down further. “Holy shit, and a ton of _molnijas_. There’s more than fifteen on her neck.”

The other leaned in to inspect the woman’s tattoos. “We’re miles from anywhere owned by Court. What would a guardian be doing out in the woods like this?”

The medic shrugged. “Maybe she got lost?”

Josiah pulled out a knife and cut the woman’s shirt at the collar. The _molnija_ marks, and even a few _zvezda_ marks as well, covered her neck and a large portion of her shoulders. “Or maybe she was out tracking the same Strigoi nest we were.”

The team looked at each other, waiting for Josiah’s next command before they proceeded with bringing the woman back to their camp. Josiah pulled a phone out of his pocket and took a photo of the woman’s back. She was covered in bite marks from the Strigoi, but the ink of the tattoos, black as the night, were still visible.

 _Snap_.

Everyone whipped their heads towards the sound, but nothing came out of the forest.

“Let’s get out of here,” Josiah said, pocketing his phone. “This place creeps me out.”

The team carried the woman back towards the camp they had pitched. Glittering moonlight caught Josiah’s attention, and he leaned down, his hand grasping a nazar charm out of the dirt.

“Where did you come from?” Josiah whispered to the piece of bright blue glass. It looked like some kind of eye of sorts. It was used to ward off evil spirits.

“Captain!” barked one of the medics. “You coming?”

Josiah pocketed the charm and looked at the woman as she laid on the stretcher. “Yeah, I am.”


	2. Corinth

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to everyone for all of the kind words on the last chapter! Everything will come into focus soon, don't worry. As always, thank you to objectiveheartmuscle (Em) and sage meryllis banks (Amy) for being my favourite betas and people (in that order).
> 
> Check out my tumblr (lorcleis) for moodboards, bios, edits, and more for Corinthians!

 

Rose woke up gasping for air. She clutched at everything: her throat, her arms, the empty place where her stake should have been. There were sheets on the bed she was in—sheets. A _bed_. Rose blinked, her lungs taking in air at a rapid rate. The lights were bright, too bright, like fireworks bursting in front of her eyelids.

Her senses went into overdrive, as did the heart monitor next to her.

_Beep. Beep. Beep._

Rose flailed in her bed and rolled, landing with a thud on the tiled floor beside her. She took in deep, heaving breaths from where she sat on the floor like a cornered animal.

_Lissa, I- Where am I? Lissa- I need to protect Lissa._

She was disoriented and in desperate need of water. Everything felt like it was coming at her through a pane of glass; the world was watery and distorted. Rose blinked for a few seconds and noticed a figure standing at the foot of the bed.

 _White. Bright—hospital?_ Rose thought in fragments, unable to grasp anything properly.

The nurse crouched next to her and said something she couldn't hear.

"What?" Rose asked. She backed herself further into the corner.

_What is going on?_

"I asked," the nurse began. Everything seemed to snap into place in that moment. "Are you alright?"

It took Rose a few moments before she could formulate a response, but she nodded, albeit slowly. A stinging sensation rippled through her neck.

"Good." The nurse smiled. "What's your name?"

Rose knew she couldn't respond truthfully; she didn't know where she was or who these people were. If it was something connected to Court or the Strigoi, there'd be signs. Everything here just looked blank.

She thought back to her school days when they were going over Russian names. Anastasia was common enough, but too formal for her liking. Maybe one of the nicknames. Nastya? No. Anastasla? Too long, but it felt better. She decided to chop the name in half.

 _Stasla_.

Perfect.

"Stasla..." Rose hesitated for a moment. She decided to keep a piece of her real identity as well. "Belikova. Stasla Belikova."

The nurse's face softened. "Well, Miss Belikova, can I help you back to your bed? You took quite a tumble with the Strigoi out there."

Feeling numb, Rose allowed the nurse to help her. The room was small, but had a heart rate machine, IV, and an end table with an F. Scott Fitzgerald novel on it. An odd choice by Rose's standards. The room was devoid of any art or brandings, and there weren't any windows. At least in a human hospital there were windows.

"Sorry?" Rose asked. Her nerves went on end at the mention of Strigoi.

"The patrol team said you had six bites on you when they found you on the road." The nurse was kind but brusque. She picked up the clipboard at the end of Rose's bed and began ticking off various boxes.

"I—" Rose looked down at the patches of gauze on her arms and legs. Her fingers brushed lightly over the two on her neck. She was surprised she hadn't been sucked dry.

"What you need is bed rest," the nurse said. She checked the machines next to Rose's hospital bed with a small, knowing smile. She noticed that the nurse wasn't wearing traditional scrubs, but a grey, long-sleeved shirt and navy blue pants. "You're going to have to heal the old-fashioned way, after all."

"What?" Rose furrowed her eyebrows. "What do you mean?"

"Well, you're a dhampir," the nurse said. "We would usually give you some anti-venom to help with the bites. We make our own in-house from Strigoi blood, you know. It's much better than what they sell on the black market in cities. Sadly, you're ineligible. Sorry. The doctor stitched them up, but it'll be a few weeks before you are up and running again."

The nurse's words swirled in Rose's head. She'd never heard of anti-venom being given to a dhampir; in fact, she'd never even heard of anti-venom at all. Strigoi didn't have venom; that was for movie vampires and _Twilight_ novels. There was a run-in that members of Court had with people attempting to sell an unknown illegal drug to dhampirs and Moroi in New York, but they hadn't been able to figure out anything about the drug or who was selling it. Now Rose knew: it was to speed up the healing process.

"Do you mind telling me," Rose began, attempting to keep her tone even. She didn't want to give away any information, especially since it was becoming more apparent that she wasn't in Kansas anymore. " _Why_ I'm ineligible?"

"Oh, I'm sorry. I thought you knew." The nurse checked Rose's IV. "You're pregnant."

_Pregnant._

Rose could hardly believe it. She had just been thinking of how impossible it was for her to become pregnant and now with the Strigoi attack—she couldn't believe it. She didn't.

"I'm not—I can't be—" Rose began before she stopped herself. She needed to stay quiet; it was the only way she'd make it out and back to court.

"We had to test your blood when you came in," the nurse answered. She had a sympathetic expression on her face, one that made Rose's blood curdle. "You needed a major transfusion, and when we tested you, you came back with elevated HCG levels. You're pregnant, Miss Belikova."

Rose took in a shaky breath. "Would you mind telling me where I am?"

The nurse continued checking sections of Rose's chart off. "You're in Corinth."

"Corinth?" Rose parroted.

The nurse's expression changed on her face as she evaluated Rose. She clutched the clipboard in her hands and made for the door. "The doctor will be by shortly."

"Wait!" Rose shouted as the door swung shut. "You... goddammit."

She glanced around the small skybox of a room for any clue as to what Corinth might be, or even where. They didn't seem to operate under Court influence, and they definitely knew about vampires. She would have known if Lissa knew of a place like this. Maybe Corinth was another of the academies? St. Vladimir's had a medic section in the basement, but that was it. This seemed liked a full-fledged hospital.

Rose's mind felt like it was beginning to cloud. _Meds_ , she thought absentmindedly. _They must have given me meds_. A part of her didn't care; the bites had begun to ache. Rose wondered for a split second why she didn't feel any of the aftereffects of the Strigoi bites.

She wondered if the nurse had been right as she drifted off to sleep.

* * *

"You're not a light sleeper."

The voice sounded gruff. Rose blinked awake.

The dhampir man in front of her looked like he'd just gotten back from a battle. His shirt was covered in smears of dirt and leaves with a crop of light brown curls on his head spilling over onto a cut on his face that had been bleeding heavily. A gold hoop glittered in his left lobe. He wasn't handsome; rather pretty, like a model in a high fashion magazine. Rose could tell he was trying to look tough.

"Do I need to be?" Rose asked. She sat up with a grimace.

"The name's Josiah," the man said. He puffed out his chest. "And yours?"

"Stasla," Rose said, keeping up the lie. "Nice to meet you."

"Is it?" Josiah answered. He had to be close to her age, but she couldn't be sure; there was something about his face that made it ageless. He was a dhampir, that much was apparent, and he seemed almost insulted that Rose didn't want to give him information. "You're a long way from home, guardian."

"It'd be easier to know just how far 'long' is if I knew where Corinth was," Rose shot back. "Or what it is. I'm no guardian, either."

"Tell that to your promise mark," Josiah replied. "I know a guardian when I see one."

"Congratulations, you have eyes," Rose said. "Anything else you want to tell me?"

Their eyes locked in an informal staring contest. Josiah's gaze wavered, like he had some reason to prove himself in this room to a woman he barely knew. Rose knew what that felt like.

"Josiah!" Someone shouted from the hallway.

The door opened and a Moroi man of around sixty entered. He looked exactly like Josiah, or perhaps it was the other way around. They were mirror images of each other; father and son it seemed, but while Josiah appeared to have trouble commanding a room, his father did not. Josiah ruffled at the man's arrival.

"You're not allowed to be in here," the man said, gesturing for Josiah to leave.

"I was only following up on—" Josiah protested.

"Like hell you were," the man said. "Leave. Now. Go get cleaned up by Yuri; you look like you've been through hell."

He showed Josiah the door, who looked at Rose with a puzzled expression and then left the room. The man took Josiah's place but not before making sure that Josiah was not standing directly outside the door.

"Hello, Miss Belikova," he said with a light smile. "I apologize for the behaviour of my son. My name is Hollis. We're lucky to have you here."

"Stasla. I'd like to leave."

"Of course," Hollis said, "But that would be a bit of a problem with your injuries. You need to recover."

"And where is it that I am recovering, exactly?" Rose clenched her jaw. There was something off about this place.

"Corinth is an underground facility for people such as yourself," Hollis said, crossing his arms over his chest.

"Dhampirs?" Rose asked.

"People who were left behind," Hollis answered. "Dhampir, Moroi, even a few humans if they're willing. A team of mine found you in the forests of Montana, nearly dead on the side of the road. Want to tell me how a promised guardian found herself in that situation?"

So these were her supposed rescuers. She felt like she should be grateful, but she had an odd stone in the pit of her stomach. No one was to be trusted; not even people who knew about the vampire world— _especially_ people who knew about the vampire world. Although Court was a slippery slope, it was a known evil. She knew nothing about Corinth.

"No," Rose replied. "Not really."

Hollis raised an eyebrow. "You're not exactly in the best of situations, Miss Belikova."

"Stasla," Rose insisted.

"Stasla," Hollis repeated. The name sounded odd coming from his mouth. "I don't blame you for feeling cornered, but we need the full story for our reports. You're a guardian, you should know the drill."

"There's no drill for renegade compounds," Rose replied. "Certainly not for ones who don't like sharing, like Corinth seems to be."

"We'd like for you to stay with us until your injuries heal, if that is alright with you," Hollis replied.

"I don't stay anywhere I don't know," Rose shot back.

"That's fair, but we have our own people to protect," Hollis said. "I can't go telling you our secrets and have you running back to Court."

Her eyes narrowed. "So I'm guessing what you do here is secret?"

"A little something like that," Hollis said. "You will always be safe here, Miss Belikova. No harm comes to anyone we treat, but anyone who wants to learn more about us has a decision to make: stay with us and learn our ways, or leave and never know them."

" _That's_ not creepy," she replied.

He gave her a secretive smile before leaving. "It seems to me like you have something to think about."

She thought of the nurse's words earlier: she was pregnant, or she might be. She still couldn't figure out if that was genuine or not, but it seemed like it was. It didn't seem like the nurse would have any reason that would make her want to lie, but Hollis definitely did.

Hollis knew she was a guardian and if the way Josiah acted around him showed anything, he was obeyed without hesitation in Corinth. He wasn't a player in the game that Rose wanted to mess with, but what he was offering her seemed odd. A place to stay simply because they'd picked her up from the side of the road? Dhampir numbers in Corinth must be low if they were that desperate.

Rose placed a hand over her stomach. She didn't feel like she was pregnant, but maybe she'd known it in the back of her mind. Dhampirs couldn't have children with other dhampirs, but Dimitri wasn't really a typical dhampir. Someone who had become Strigoi and had his soul returned couldn't be entirely normal again. If Dimitri was something else, then it wasn't just _possible_ that she was having a child—it was incredibly probable.

A biological child of two dhampirs, or what appeared to be two dhampirs, would be a miracle at Court. It would be a celebrity, like Lissa had said. Rose's child could never be able to have a normal life no matter what anyone did. There would be people after Rose and Dimitri to make more children, to fuel the guardian-making mill. She didn't want her child to become a soldier in the system.

She wanted them to have a life of their own.

* * *

It was later in the day, or what Rose assumed was day, when someone slipped into her room again. She'd checked the door between her fitful bouts of sleep to find it locked earlier. Corinth might look welcoming, but they clearly didn't want an outsider to discover their secrets.

Not until she signed her life away to them, that is.

Josiah closed the door behind him and regarded Rose with a skeptical glance.

"I heard you aren't supposed to be in here," Rose said.

"And who told you that?" Josiah asked.

"Your father," Rose replied. "Or who I assume is your father. You're spitting images of each other. It's kind of creepy."

"I'm better looking," Josiah said. He folded his hands in front of him.

"Have you come to do something _other_ than stare at me?" Rose asked. "Otherwise, I'll just go back to sleep so I don't have to bear witness."

"Your name isn't Stasla," Josiah said bluntly. He glanced at her for a reaction.

"Congratulations," Rose replied. "You want a prize for that sleuthing?"

"Court is busy preparing a funeral for dhampir named Rose Hathaway," Josiah said. "Apparently she was the lead guardian to Queen Vasilisa. She sounds like someone pretty important, if you ask me."

"Sucks to be her," Rose said. She shifted uncomfortably in her bed. "Why would a place like this care about what happens at Court?"

"Because Court runs everything in the vampire world," Josiah replied. "You know that, _Stasla_. From Anastasia, right?"

"You know your Russian," Rose said.

"It's become a requirement in this life."Josiah stared at her with a tempestuous expression. It was clear that he wasn't as good at controlling his emotions as his father was. He was reckless, a real fighter like Rose and so many other guardians she'd come to know over her years at Court. He had that spark.

Sparks were dangerous.

"What is Corinth?" Rose asked.

"What's your real name?" Josiah countered.

"I think you already know the answer to that." Rose cocked her head to the side. "Or do you want to continue to play cat and mouse?"

"I assume Hollis already told you what Corinth is," Josiah said. "There's no use in me repeating it."

"You know what they say about assuming..." Rose smiled. "He didn't give me a straight answer. No one seems to want to give me any information here."

"It's a self-preservation thing," he answered. "If you don't decide to stay, your memories will be erased anyway."

Rose clenched her jaw. That meant there was a Moroi living in Corinth that could manipulate spirit or Hollis was getting compulsion charms from someone on the outside. A spirit user would be invaluable to a society that operated under Court's radar. The idea was somewhat terrifying. Everything she'd heard so far screamed danger to her. Was Corinth full of vigilantes? Did they want to take revenge on Court? Were they just Strigoi killers? They could be anything.

She hesitated to call them rescuers.

If she hadn't been taken by members of Corinth, she would most likely be dead by now. That, or someone from St Vladimir's would have found her, and she would be back at Court, in Dimitri's arms.

Rose had heard of rogue dhampirs who'd attempted to set up their own operation outside of Court's boundaries; one of Jill's guardians came from such a place. Usually, they didn't gain any traction or were killed during the supposed "missions" they went on to break up Strigoi nests. Corinth didn't strike Rose as such a place; rogue dhampir settlements were dirty and underfunded. They thrived on adrenaline, not discipline. Corinth had enough reach to gain a nursing staff, of all things—who knew what else they had? They were much more powerful.

"Show me," Rose said.

"What?" Josiah asked.

"Show me Corinth."

"You're lying in bed, covered in Strigoi bites." Josiah gestured to her. "There's no way you'd be able to walk around the compound."

"Then get me a wheelchair, genius," Rose replied. "I'm not making a decision until I see what I'm getting into."

Josiah pressed his lips into a thin line. There was no doubt that it was against his father's wishes to allow Rose to roam about Corinth on the chance that she managed to escape back to Court, but Rose had a feeling that Josiah was willing to risk it to get her to stay. She hoped, at least.

He turned and made for the door.

"Where are you going?" Rose called after him.

"To get you a damn wheelchair," Josiah replied.

Rose settled into her bed, a smile on her face. He was easy to manipulate despite the tough act he liked to play and Rose had a lot of practice getting exactly what she wanted; the two made for a deadly combination. She liked him in the way she liked Eddie and Mason—a little rough around the edges, but eager to help. Friendships weren't interesting if one was a complete pushover.

Josiah re-entered her room with a collapsed wheelchair in one hand. He opened it up and set it on the ground. "Here. I'm not taking you past the walkways and you're not allowed to speak to _anyone_."

Rose moved the IV bag next to the wheelchair and lifted herself from the bed with a bit of difficulty. Josiah leaned against the wall opposite her and fiddled with something in his pocket, his mind clearly elsewhere. She gave him the stink eye when he refused to help her. "Yeah, yeah, secret facility, prisoner, whatever."

"You're not a prisoner," Josiah snorted.

"Really?" Rose dragged the blanket from the bed onto her lap. "Because I sure feel like one."

"That's your problem, Stasla, not mine." Josiah wheeled her out the door and into the hallway beyond.

 _Stasla_. It still felt like a person alien to who Rose used to be. When she was on missions that needed a cover, she usually went with something typical and common, like Emily or Sarah, but Stasla was new. It stood out to her the way other cover identities never had. Who was Stasla Belikova?

 _No one_ , Rose thought. _A ghost_.

One life, in exchange for another. She thought, in a brief moment of clarity, that it must be like shaking hands with death.

The hallway beyond her room was long and entirely one colour: grey. Everything in Corinth that she'd seen so far was grey; it was like living inside a rain cloud. The lights beamed down from overhead and there still weren't any windows, but there were many, many more doors. All of the doors had locks that required key cards to open them. It looked uniformly unlike anything Rose had seen.

"Did someone fire the interior decorator?" she asked. The place seemed to be drained of life. Not really the ideal hospital setting.

"I thought you Court cronies liked minimalism," Josiah said.

"To a degree." Rose glanced at their surroundings as they entered an elevator. There was no one else in sight. "We do have a throne room, though, so there's that."

"Oh, yeah, _royalty_. I forgot," Josiah said sarcastically.

"Hey, the queen is a great ruler," Rose said. She elbowed his hand. _And my best friend._

"Have you ever stopped to ask yourself why only royals can rule?" Josiah asked. "Why not non-royal Moroi? Or dhampirs?"

"A dhampir monarch wouldn't work." Rose rattled off the rhetoric just as she'd learned it in school. It wasn't as if she believed in the words she was saying, but she'd lived them for so long that she hadn't known any other reality. Rose loved being a guardian, but she wasn't sure if she would have become one if she had been given the choice to do something else. "They have to protect the Moroi. It'd be a waste."

"And not letting dhampirs into leadership roles is a waste as well," Josiah replied. "We're just as good as they are, if not better."

"How can you say that when your father is Moroi?" Rose simmered with anger. She'd thought the same things he did when she was a novice, but she'd grown out of it. Insubordination did nothing but hinder the system.

"Hollis is a little different then most," Josiah said cryptically. The elevator doors opened and he wheeled her out, refusing to elaborate.

"Well you're a regular chatty Cathy here, but what you're suggesting sounds like treason," Rose said. She smoothed the blanket on her lap. "It's just now how things are."

"Leaving things how they are is the most dangerous act a man can engage in."

Rose looked up at Josiah, attempting to decode his expression but unable to find anything to go on. "Good thing I'm a woman then."

Josiah let out a short laugh. "You've got a mouth on you, Belikova. I'll give you that."

They turned the corner and the space opened up into a large terrace overlooking the inside of a massive warehouse. There were stacks upon stacks of abandoned shipping containers; some appeared to be homes, others offices or stores connected with all manners of staircases, ladders, rope swings, and fireman poles. Rose could barely see the end of it all.

A group of people were directly below them in a small clearing that Rose thought must be Corinth's answer to a park or something. There were two people young enough to be novices sparring in the center with a small crowd of other trainees circling them, egging the two on.

"Their cadet exam is tomorrow; they're trying to blow off steam," Josiah clarified. "It's kind of like a guardian exam, but it's focused on killing the Strigoi, not protecting a Moroi."

"Huh." Rose watched the two spar for a moment. "They're pretty good."

"High praise from a guardian." Josiah gripped the handles of the wheelchair. "Well, this is as far as I can take you."

"It's..." Rose's voice trailed off.

It was the most interesting thing she'd seen in her life. It was an intermingling of the species with no barriers, no social constructs preventing anyone from being who they wanted. There were Moroi and dhampir alike training to fight Strigoi; she wasn't sure but she also thought she spotted some humans in the distance. Court was her home, but this seemed like another world, a utopia of sorts.

It was different from the Keepers: Rose could feel an energy that permeated every inch of Corinth. It felt like a home, but it was still filled with people who had a purpose. Court's purpose was always to protect the Moroi, but Corinth wanted something different. They wanted to protect _everyone_.

"It's amazing, isn't it?" Josiah said.

Rose bit her lip. "A little bit, yeah."

"Court has nothing on us." Josiah looked triumphant. Rose could tell he loved Corinth with all of her heart, the same way Rose loved Dimitri and Lissa. She had no love for Court itself if her best friends in the world weren't there.

She was sure if she returned, she would never live a normal life again.

"I can't go back to Court," Rose said.

"Why?" Josiah asked. "We'll let you leave. We're not monsters here."

"No, you don't understand." A tear slipped down Rose's face. Next to her, Josiah fell silent. "I'm pregnant," she said, her voice barely above a whisper. "By another dhampir."

She felt Josiah stiffen. "That's impossible."

Rose barked out a short laugh. She swatted at the tears on her face with the edge of her hospital gown. "You're telling me."

After a few moments, Josiah reached into his pocket and pulled something out, handing it to Rose. It was her nazar charm, glittering and blue with a few specks of dirt clinging to the surface.

Rose closed her hand around it. "Thank you," she whispered.

He smiled softly. "No problem."

" _Josiah!_ " Hollis's voice roared from the other end of the terrace.

The other people walking along the terrace, either to go down a level or to enter the room that appeared to be an office behind them, stopped and stared for a moment before going back to their normal routine. Hollis barreled up the stairs towards Josiah, who had a look of sheer terror on his face.

"Hollis," Rose said with a charming smile. "Your son has really rolled out the welcome wagon. Corinth is impressive."

"Thank you, Miss Belikova, but he has disobeyed direct orders," Hollis replied. He was barely containing his anger. "Josiah, report to level four. I'll deal with you there."

Josiah looked meek when up against his father, but Rose didn't blame him. Even as a Moroi, Hollis was a formidable foe; he looked like he could take down a swath of Strigoi on willpower alone.

"I would like to stay," Rose interjected, attempting to draw their attention away from each other in the interest of keeping the peace. She never thought she wouldn't encourage a fight to break out in her life.

"Sorry?" Hollis furrowed his eyebrows.

"To answer your earlier question," Rose began again. "I would like to stay. You offered, Hollis. I'm just making good on my part of the bargain."

Hollis glanced at Josiah and they had a small, silent conversation between each other that Rose didn't bother attempting to follow. The intricacies of father-child relationships were exhausting to her. Hollis nodded at Josiah.

"Alright, but staying here is never free," Hollis said.

"I didn't expect it would be," Rose replied. "See those novices down there? They'll need a lot more training than that MMA shit I'm betting they've been given. It's weak sauce. I could take them down from this wheelchair."

"Well, you're rather renown in your own world, Rose Hathaway." Hollis sized Rose up from where he stood. She could tell he respected her, but he wanted her to know his scope was far-reaching. "Or would you like to be called Stasla from now on?"

"You can call me Rose, but those guys out there," She pointed to the far reaches of the warehouse, "They can only call me Stasla."

"You think you can train them better?" Hollis asked.

"With my hands tied behind my back." Rose grinned.

"Alright." Hollis thought for a moment. "Josiah, return Miss Belikova to her room. After that, get the hell back to work. The Montana team is still sifting through the data you brought back."

Josiah gulped. "Yes, sir."

"And Rose," Hollis began. He crouched down to her eye level.

"Yes?" She quirked an eyebrow.

"You contact your friends in Court about Corinth, and you won't even remember your first name, let alone your time here, " he said. "We clear?"

In that moment, Rose decided that she liked Hollis, threatening ultimatums notwithstanding. She smiled. "Crystal."


	3. Beginnings

"Fuck," Valya exclaimed as she fell to the mat for the second time that day. Her shoulder stung with the impact, already tight from putting in overtime in her training. "Can you help me up here?"

The hand of Josiah Hollis reached down to help her up. He had helped to train her when she was younger, but recently Valya had fallen behind the other Cadets and had asked to train in secret. "You're thinking too much about the end result, not how to get there."

"Yeah, yeah, the journey, not the destination." Valya brushed herself off. "It'd help if I didn't eat mat every time you blocked me."

Josiah shrugged. "You told me not to go easy on you."

Valya blew a piece of hair out of her face, her fists at the ready. "Let's go."

Valentina Belikova, or Valya as she was called by most, was twenty-three years old and the spitting image of her mother. She was tall, with long brown hair that glistened gold in the sunlight and tanned skin that had become pale from years of living within Corinth's walls. The only notable distinction was her eyes; whilst Rose's were brown, Valya had bright blue eyes, like pieces of glittering ice.

She captured the same spirit of her mother as well: the uncaged fury that was Rose Hathaway displaced into a younger body. When Valya was born, the community of Corinth knew that she would become a fierce warrior just like her mother, but Valya's ability was lesser than that of both her mother and her father. She appeared to have the drive but she lacked skill, so Valya decided to train twice as hard as she had been.

Even if she fell on her ass every time she stepped up to spar.

"Now try to land a kick on my arm," Josiah said, patting his bicep. "I'm going to go for your throat: block me."

Valya nodded, determination in her eyes. She saw Josiah's arm reach out and she twisted, her leg coming up to meet his forearm, but she'd done it too quickly and he grabbed her leg instead, flipping her onto the mat.

"No," Valya let out the word in a miserable breath. "I'm too skinny; my muscle just isn't there. Why can't we eat more meat in this place?"

Josiah held out his hand for her to grab. "Veggies are less expensive. Besides, you're just using excuses now and that doesn't sound like the kid I know. Let's do it again."

Valya was practically raised by Josiah and his husband, a former Alchemist named Adam. When her mother went on missions or was working, she would spend time at their house rather than the school run by Corinth or the daycare center. She'd come to call Josiah Pops and Adam was Dad, although Rose had told her bedtime stories of her real father.

 _Dimitri Belikov_. He seemed like a dream to Valya, always just outside of her grasp. The more stories Rose told to her, the more she wanted to hear; he was a god of epic proportions. Valya could tell, even though her mother had chosen to raise her in Corinth, she still loved Dimitri very much.

 _True love like that never dies_ , Valya thought. She wondered if she would find love like that for herself.

That was ridiculous, of course. Valya had a boyfriend named Sasha, a Moroi boy who had entered Corinth as an orphan at the age of three. He was a skilled Earth wielder who had previously worked in combat, but now helped grow plants in the agricultural sector, a job that was usually reserved for those who didn't go through combat training. They had been friends ever since Sasha had entered her preschool class and she'd latched onto him like a shiny new toy, but sometimes Valya wondered if she was just going with the default. Everything seemed so planned and regimented in her life that even Sasha fit into the perfect puzzle.

Valya didn't feel as fortunate as she should have, but bottling up feelings was the specialty in these parts.

Valya rolled her eyes, but complied with Josiah's command and was up on her feet in seconds. This time she breathed in before attempting the kick and landed it square on Josiah's shoulder. He went down in the blink of an eye.

"Yes!" Valya pumped her fists into the air. "Screw you, two years I spent on security detail. I am back at it!"

She began to dance while Josiah laid on the ground. He looked up at her with a quirked eyebrow.

"Are you done?" he asked in a droll tone.

"No way!" Valya pointed at him and shook her hips. "I'm going to do this every time I land a move. It's me reward for deciding to train at two in the morning."

Josiah rolled his eyes. "Whatever."

" _Cadet Belikova_."

A voice came from the door to the training gym. It was a member of main command, dressed in the spotless uniform of Corinth: a grey long-sleeved shirt and navy blue cargo trousers. She stood with her hands clasped behind her back.

Valya immediately stopped what she was doing. "Yes?"

"You're wanted on level four," the main command soldier said. "Please come with me at once."

Valya and Josiah exchanged looks and he gestured for her to follow. She went to gather her things and followed the soldier out of the gym.

It was odd to be summoned in the middle of the night, especially since most of Corinth kept to a human timetable and not a vampire one. There was no need to fear the sunlight as a Moroi because the only windows existed on the ground floor level where the greenhouse was kept.

Valya thought it even odder that main command knew where she was outside of normal work hours. She'd completed her patrol shift at midnight and called Josiah to train without the rest of the patrol team knowing. Despite being appointed as a combat Cadet, one step higher than a border or security Cadet, she still felt inferior; as if someone would figure out that she wasn't good at her job at any moment. Her mother didn't even know of the extra training she was putting in, although Valya doubted that she'd care that much. The great Stasla trained almost around the clock these days when she wasn't in meetings.

"So, nice weather today, eh?" Valya said in an attempt to get a conversation going with the soldier they sent for her.

"I wouldn't know," the soldier replied, stony-faced.

They walked in uncomfortable silence.

The fourth level of Corinth, also known as the ominous Level Four, was where main command was held and all major decisions were made for the compound. Any mission, assignment, or new recruit had to report to level four before going anywhere else. Main command was secretive and odd; with work hours going around the clock and stoic foot soldiers that lived in special units towards the main terrace that connected level four to the rest of Corinth via a set of staircases. Valya got shivers when she thought of reporting to main command, even though her mother ran it.

The great General Stasla Belikova, at it again.

It felt strange calling her mother by her title. At home she was just mom, not anything special, but in main command she was everything. She pulled the strings on the whole operation, and that included her daughter.

"Come in, Valya," Rose said. She whizzed around main command with a stack of papers in her hand.

Main command was half offices and half what felt like computer screens. Rows of workers typed away at important missions, a map of the world projected on a large, bare wall. There were small dots pinpointing the locations of agents in the field: red for active missions, blue for undercover ones. Valya spied a few grey dots as well.

 _Deceased_ , she thought.

"I said come in," Rose repeated as she passed by Valya once more. She grabbed Valya's arm and brought her towards the end of the room.

Even though years had passed, Rose Hathaway still looked as beautiful as ever. The spark had never died from her eyes and her hair grew effortlessly long. A light smattering of wrinkles that lined her face were the only indication that she'd aged at all. Valya had heard a few people she worked with call her a fox. She'd decked them.

"Mom," Valya wrenched her arm away from Rose. "What's going on?"

"You've been put on the Ural Mountains mission," she said brusquely. Soldiers whirled around them as they entered a conference room towards the back. Unlike traditional office spaces, Corinth didn't have many walls.

"A mission?" Valya's heart leapt. She'd been on a few boring domestic ones around Canada, but never somewhere so far away. It'd been Valya's dream to be able to go Spain, Thailand, Norway, _anywhere_ to dispatch a nest of Strigoi and kick back. "You're shitting me. This is amazing!"

"Okay, who brought the brat in here?" A man appeared at Rose's side and set a duffel bag down on the table with a bang.

"Pollock," Rose said sternly. "Language."

"She's too young for the mission and you know it." Pollock pointed a stern finger at Rose. He was a dhampir of average height, with a full, well-trimmed beard and a shock of auburn hair. Valya couldn't quite place him, but she recognized his face.

"We're taking the twins," Rose added, keeping her tone level. "They're only one year older than her."

Pollock grunted and clenched his jaw, shooting daggers at Valya before he took his seat. Several others joined them around the table, the noise of main command still whirring in the background. Valya felt incredibly out of place.

"Now that we're all here, let's get started," Rose said. She shuffled a few pieces of paper in front of her. "We're joined by Cadet Belikova as combat support. Say hi, everyone."

A chorus of 'hellos' came from the table. Valya shifted uncomfortably in her chair as she half waved at the rest of the team.

"I'm Gin with intel," a woman in her early thirties seated across from Valya said. She had long, black hair twisted into twin braids and skin the colour of sandstone. She grinned, obviously overjoyed to have Valya there.

"Jasper, medic" the boy seated next to him said. He pointed to himself and the girl to his left. They were both twins around Valya's age, with dark hair, bright, wide-set eyes, and strong jawlines. "This is my sister Hershey."

Valya waved to Hershey, who she'd gone through high school with while Jasper was doing his medical training. She didn't know Hershey very well, but knew enough that she rarely said much. She was a tech student and had often been away from classes for training. Hershey gave Valya a small, bashful smile.

"Now that all of the introductions are over, can we get to the briefing?" Pollock said.

"And that neanderthal over there is Pollock, the second-in-command," Rose said. She stared at Pollock down the bridge of her nose. "Don't let him fool you, his bark is worse than his bite."

Pollock scoffed.

Valya knew he felt uncomfortable with her being in the team, even though Valya was sure Rose wouldn't show favouritism towards her at all; if anything she'd be harder on her. It happened like this in everything she did with her mother: Valya had to exceed expectations; meeting them wasn't enough.

"We've received intel from an anonymous source about a series of attacks that are happening in the Ural Mountains," Rose said. She pulled up a map on the projector. There were five dots over a section of the forest. "These indicate attacks that have happened over a six-month period, but it isn't just humans as victims; it's also Strigoi."

"Strigoi?" Gin sounded doubtful.

"Whoever or _what_ ever that's attacking in this stretch of woods," Rose indicated it on the map. "Can kill Strigoi without even touching them. Boom! Just like that: dead."

"Are you sure there's no signs of a struggle? Not even puncture wounds?" Jasper asked. Hershey nudged him. "What? I've heard of Strigoi attacking each other; there might be indications of a bite."

"No bites," Rose shook her head. "The nearby town won't even enter the woods at all. We'll be staying with a family that I've been able to make contact with, but there's a very real possibility that we'll have to make camp at some point. The locals will get suspicious, so I want everyone to be on their best behaviour here."

"That means you." Gin grinned and poked Pollock in the arm. He scowled at her in return.

"This is a delicate mission we're doing here," Rose said. She handed out packets to every member of the group. "At best it will just be reconnaissance, at worst a kill mission. This thing has killed humans as well, so as much as I love that someone is killing Strigoi for us, we have to protect the living too."

Valya looked at her packet with apprehension. It was around twenty pages thick and rather heavy.

"Those are your information packets for the full briefing, which will happen tomorrow," Rose brushed her hands against each other. "You're dismissed. Get some sleep; we'll be leaving in a few days."

Everyone left the room except for Valya, who jumped from her seat. She was excited about the mission at first, but a thought dawned on her: Rose could have taken anyone from the very experienced pool of combat Cadets in Corinth. She didn't need to choose Valya.

"Why am I on this mission?" She asked bluntly.

"Valya, it's late," Rose said. "Your shift was done two hours ago. Go back to the unit and sleep."

"You didn't answer my question," Valya persisted. "Why am I on this mission? This is a high level thing we're doing. _Russia?_ It's way outside of what I'm usually put on."

"I knew you wanted to go on something international, so I picked you for combat," Rose said. "You speak Russian, you're useful."

"But I'm not even that good at combat!" Valya exclaimed. "Did you just put me on this mission out of pity?"

"I thought you wanted to travel, Valentina," Rose said. She used Valya's full name, something she only did when she was irritated. "Take the opportunities you're given."

"I don't want to be on a high level mission just because my _mom_ put me on it!" Valya was incredibly frustrated. "I want to do it on my own ability. God! Sometimes you really do suck, you know that?"

Silence hung in the air between them. Valya immediately regretted what she'd said, but the sentiment still rang true for her. She wanted to be judged by what she could do, not by what her mother could. It was hard being the daughter of a powerful member in Corinth: she was always stuck underneath an enormous shadow.

Rose's expression remained stoic, but her eyes changed from angry to a stifling type of sadness. Valya knew her mother had made an enormous sacrifice by choosing to stay in Corinth rather than return to Court, but there were times when Valya just wanted to be normal. She never felt normal.

"Go to sleep, Valya," Rose said eventually. "We'll talk about this in the morning."

"I-" Valya began.

"I said go to sleep." Her tone was strong. Rose brushed past her. "I have work to do."

Valya's shoulders went slack. She watched her mother go, the papers clutched in one fist.

She might have gotten what she'd wanted, but it wasn't right. Not by a long-shot.

* * *

Valya trudged home, most of Corinth quiet at this time of night, but paused right before opening the door to her unit. She and Rose had shared one ever since she'd been born. It was a small family unit with two bedrooms, although the second one was only added when Valya became too big to sleep in her mother's bed. They'd had so much fun decorating their home with pictures, drawings, scrap pieces of paper; anything. It was like a mural to their life together.

Valya didn't dare go inside.

Instead, she turned tail and walked up the flight of stairs that entered the agricultural department: a bright and open space that contained a greenhouse to grow food as well as a small botanical garden for medicine and decoration. It was nighttime, so the Moroi with earth magic were up, tending to the plants that weren't performing correctly and helping out of season vegetables grow. It was there she found Sasha, nestled between two rows of cabbages.

"I hope they're not planning on making more soup with that anytime soon," Valya said in a halfhearted attempt at humour.

Sasha looked up at her with his dark grey eyes and brushed dirt from his hands. "What are you doing here, Valechka?"

A small piece of Valya felt healed after hearing him say one of her nicknames. Mostly everyone called her Valya and her mother called her Valentina, but only Sasha called her Valechka. It felt like a secret code name; something only they shared. Sasha was a constant, calming presence in her life, but recently he'd felt more morose than usual.

Killing a man can do that to you.

Even after his demotion, Sasha stuck by Valya's side. It was an honest sort of love, she thought. They rarely argued and always communicated openly to each other, sometimes too openly. When they were young trainees, the rest of the class nicknamed them PDA King and Queen.

 _It's too easy_. Valya compared her relationship with Sasha to that of her mother. _Real love shouldn't be this easy_.

"I got a mission," Valya said. "Russia, somewhere in the Ural Mountains."

"Really?" Sasha sounded hopeful. "That's great."

"I even got a personal recommendation from General Belikova herself," she added with a tinge of sarcasm.

Sasha's face fell. He returned to the cabbages. "You take what you can get sometimes, Valechka. Not everything is handed to us on silver platters."

Valya sighed. "I know. I had it out with her after the meeting. She's been acting weird lately, you know? Really closed off; not anything like she was before she took the mission to Pennsylvania."

"I hadn't noticed. I'm not exactly Stasla's number one recruit," Sasha said. His voice had an edge to it.

"She likes you," Valya nudged his shoulder. "She doesn't like the idea of me and you, but she likes _you_."

"Sure." He paused. "I'm sorry."

Valya raised her eyebrows. "For what?"

"That you fought with your mom. I know that's hard." Sasha sighed. He didn't have any parents in Corinth, and as much as the teaching staff cared for him, there was no one for him to call home. Valya felt lucky: she had three people she considered to be her parents.

"Well, she'll be even better in the morning when I steal all of her coffee and hide it underneath the ugly troll statue Pops got her as a joke last Christmas," Valya said.

Sasha smiled. "Don't do that."

"How else am I going to get back at her?" A mischievous tone crept up in Valya's voice.

"Just stay in my unit," Sasha said. "It'll be better for you and will absolutely torture Stasla."

Valya grinned. "You always have the best ideas."

He hummed, his hand over the cabbage. A few leaves that had wilted sprung back to life; the cabbage seemed more full and green. He stood and brushed the dirt on his hands on his trousers.

"If you're going to hang around me all night, you might want to go grab a stool," Sasha suggested. "I'm working with the cabbages until five."

"Great," Valya rolled her eyes. She grabbed the collar of his shirt, smoothing it down. "I love it when you get down and dirty with the vegetables."

A smile grew on Sasha's face like the plants he carefully looked after. Slowly and with deliberation, he leaned down and pressed his cheek to hers.

"If I'm caught kissing on the job, I might be demoted even further." His whisper made her ear tingle.

Valya weaved her hands through his long locks of hair. "Even further? But I already outrank you, _Border Cadet_."

Sasha chuckled. He stepped away from her. "Go get that stool or you're sitting in the dirt."

Valya rolled her eyes and made for the storeroom near the entrance of the greenhouse. "You're a very hard man to love, you know that?"

Sasha smiled softly, knowingly. He was good at catching her jokes, but also recognized that there was a kernel of truth to each of them. "I do."

He was a handsome man, towering over the dhampir population but rather average when it came to the other Moroi that lived within Corinth. He had sharp features and dark eyebrows that hung over his eyes like crows. It was a haunting gaze, but his grey eyes were nothing but kind. He had a beard that Valya wished he'd never shave, and occasionally he would come back from work with a bare face. She'd play at being disappointed until he peppered her cheeks with kisses.

Sasha was silent around others and many took this for aloofness, but he was one of the most humble people that Valya knew. When you come from nothing, there is no pedestal to be knocked off of.

Even after four years, Valya was still unsure of what they were to each other. She hesitated to call him her boyfriend or her partner. They weren't serious enough to be married, just two people existing alongside of each other in the endless and unfathomable universe. He was so deliberate in everything he did; recklessness did nothing but bring him strife, so he became quiet and calm. It was intimidating to some, but it complimented Valya perfectly. She felt like the earth beneath her feet was constantly unstable and Sasha being grounded was what brought her back.

She remembered a time when he didn't think before he leapt and how much of a rush that brought her, but they weren't teenagers anymore. Sometimes things changed for the better and sometimes things just changed.

Valya set her stool next to where Sasha crouched in the dirt, watching him carefully.

"Do you ever think we'll both be put on a mission together?" she wondered.

"I think that'd be a dangerous decision," Sasha said.

"Why? We work well together," Valya said.

Sasha chuckled. "You don't get the bigger picture here, Valechka. I would protect you until my dying breath. We'd never finish the mission."

Valya gripped the edge of the stool. "I'm not the one here that needs protecting, Aleksandr."

Sasha paused in his work and looked up at her. He cracked a smile. "Is that so?"

"Yes," Valya bit her lip. "You'd die at the hands of Strigoi and I'd make a beautiful widow. Then I'd be promoted for my valiancy in the line of duty and become the greatest general Corinth has ever seen, overthrow Court, and make myself queen."

"Is that what you want?" Sasha returned to the cabbages. "To be just like your mother?"

Valya hesitated. "Yes. Everyone loves her."

 _Everyone fears her_ , she thought to herself.

Sasha could see the thoughts swirling inside Valya's mind and decided it was a pick your battles sort of day. "Whatever you want, Valechka."

They settled into a companionable silence.

After three hours they returned to Sasha's unit, hands covered in rich, dark earth, and collapsed in a heap on his bed. The sun rose and it was another day.


	4. Calm

Valya slipped out of Sasha's unit at noon the next day. The full briefing wasn't for a few hours and her regular shift began at four, but she was itching to do something, anything. She placed a light kiss on Sasha's forehead and left.

His unit was small: just a studio on the ground level of a building three shipping containers high. Family units often had kitchens and play rooms, but those who lived alone in the barracks ate in the dining hall. Unity was Corinth's number one concern.

She treaded lightly in the street outside Sasha's unit, not wanting to draw attention to herself. It was the middle of the day, which meant that everyone was either at day-shifts, sleeping, or at school. The school in Corinth was small, but they had around thirty students spanning the ages of two to eighteen. Children entering Corinth were rare, but couples had them all the time. The trainee classes for combat were much larger, as any adult who wished to work for Corinth in the combat sector had to go through them. All in all, the population of Corinth neared five hundred.

She found two members of the team in the gym, training together using the punching bags on the far end by the wall. Gin's hair was tied up in a ponytail, but her dark curls still cascaded down her back. Valya guessed that she hadn't had a haircut in years, but it didn't seem to stop her as she directed Pollock, who was going through a boxing sequence with the bag.

"Open your elbow more!" Gin shouted as she held the bag still. Pollock was strong, and she grunted as he landed a right hook. "Don't focus on strength, focus on technique."

Valya put her things down on the bench next to where Gin and Pollock were practicing. There was a small group of trainees doing drills on the other side of the gym, but otherwise it was empty.

"The briefing's not for hours, brat," Pollock said to her. His eyes were still focused in on the punching bag, but he'd obviously noticed her come in. "What are you doing here?"

"I'm here to get some training in before I go to work, same as you," Valya said. She pulled a pair of hand wraps out of her bag and began taping her fingers up. "And stop calling me brat. You're the second-in-command, Pollock. Maybe act like it sometime."

Pollock cracked a smile. "The day I stop calling you brat is the day you stop being the offspring of Stasla Belikova. You are your mother's daughter, after all."

" _Pollock_ ," Gin called from behind the punching bag. "Hush."

"You seem to really have it out for my mom," Valya said. She pushed her bag underneath the bench. "Makes me wonder why you're even on the team at all."

"I've been wondering the same thing about you," Pollock said offhandedly, as if he was talking to her in line at the supermarket. "And I like your mom just fine. She's my favorite superior officer to work with."

"You could have fooled me." Valya went to another punching bag and hung it from the ceiling. She stabilized it before beginning a short warmup.

"I heard you're pretty easy to fool." Pollock continued training, sweat dripping from his face. "That delinquent boyfriend of yours still has you on a leash despite the blood on his hands. Who knows, maybe his next victim will be you."

Valya stopped her warm-up to stare at the sheer audacity he had to say that aloud. "You know what? Fuck you."

Gin set the punching bag down with a large bang and let it slump to the floor. "Jesus Christ, Pollock. Let the girl live. If you're going to be this awful to the team, I'm going to report you to HR. _Again_."

Pollock leveled a glare at her. "You promised to train with me."

"Not if you're going to be a dick," Gin retorted. She turned her back to him and crossed her arms over her chest. "This is Omaha all over again."

Valya snorted.

"Don't be like that," Pollock said. He laid a hand on her shoulder, then glanced to Valya, who was watching the entire scene unfold with an amused expression. "Get out of here, kid. We're not dinner theatre."

"Hey," Valya said, her hands on the punching bag. "I'm just here to train."

Pollock glowered at her.

"Go back to your unit," Gin told him. "You're being an asshole and you need to walk it off before the briefing today. You don't want to upset Stasla by cussing out her own daughter, do you?"

It seemed to take a few moments for her words to compute in Pollock's mind, but he looked at Valya as if there was something she didn't know. Valya knew there had to be a reason why he didn't like her, and it wasn't just because she was the daughter of Corinth's leader; no, there was something else beneath the surface that she could tell he wanted to say. Valya wasn't one for making enemies- Corinth was a fishbowl after all.

"I'll see you later," Pollock said with some difficulty as he walked out of the gym.

"Yikes," Valya said when he was gone. "Is he always so...?"

"Grumpy?" Gin finished. "No. He's usually a great guy to work with, but after he got back from the Pennsylvania mission a month ago, he's been a little off."

"Why? I thought that was just a simple kill mission on a Strigoi nest." Valya knitted her eyebrows together.

"I guess not. The details have been classified." Gin shrugged and moved to hold the punching bag in place. "Want some help? I'm pretty good at spotting mistakes."

Valya didn't want to ruminate on what that meant; missions were classified all of the time. Most missions never even saw the light of day anyway, but Pennsylvania was a sore topic for some people inside Corinth. For those scorned by Court, it was somewhere no one wanted to returned to. Gin was being nice to her, and with the current lineup of the team including both Pollock and her mother, who didn't seem inclined to do Valya any favors at the moment, she wanted to take advantage of a budding friendship

Valya put her arms up. "Let's go."

* * *

Valya exited the briefing with another thick packet of information she needed to study that evening, but wasn't planning on doing until they were on the plane towards Moscow. Tonight was her normally scheduled date night with Sasha: a quiet affair that was dinner and a movie at best, sitting on the roof of Corinth and taking potshots at the trees with pebbles at worst.

She couldn't imagine getting ready at her own house, the unit she shared with her mother that felt impossibly small every time she thought about returning to share the space with her. Rose had barely made eye-contact with Valya the entire briefing, but Valya wasn't going to seek her out for reconciliation; that wasn't her style. Rose had to apologize first because she was the one who had done something wrong

"Ready for the mission?" Gin asked as they left Level Four. Pollock was on her right, his jaw clenched.

Valya shook her head. "I need to go pack. I've never even left this continent before, let alone gone to _Russia_."

"The homeland," Gin said with a hint of sarcasm in her voice. With her dark skin and eyes, she was most likely of Indian descent, but most Moroi and dhampirs considered Russia to be a gathering place for their kind, despite Court being based in America.

"Well, at least all of those Russian lessons in school will begin to pay off," Valya said. "I might even get to use _kuritsa_ in a conversation."

"Chicken?" Gin raised an eyebrow.

" _Kuritsa_!" Hershey exclaimed from further down the hallway.

Valya grinned at her, then turned back to Gin. "It was an old joke from Russian class. We were studying animals and chicken became like a rallying cry. To be honest, it's the Russian word I remember with the most clarity."

Gin scoffed and shook her head. "Everyone from your year group sounds like they were a handful."

"They were," said Rose as she came up behind them. "A bear to teach, each and every one of them."

"Stasla," Gin inclined her head in respect.

Valya chose a spot to look at on the wall rather than lock eyes with her mother.

"Hey Gin, can I talk to my daughter for a second?" Rose gave Gin a warm smile.

Valya licked her lips, uncomfortable in the knowledge that she'd be getting a starn talking-to from her own mother at the age of twenty-three. She knew she'd said some awful things to her after the meeting yesterday, but in her mind they were justified. Her mother never understood that she didn't want handouts just because of who she was related to. It'd happened too often when she was a child, but she'd never realized it: extra sweets when the transportation team arrived back with food, days off from lessons when Rose was back from a mission for more than a split-second, afternoons out in the fields beyond Corinth's walls where the grass grew higher than her head. She'd lived the charmed life as a child, but when she entered high school she realized that her classmates resented her.

Valya loved her mother with all of her head, but she was still a pain in her ass.

"Yes?" she said with a huff as Gin walked away.

"Let's walk and talk," Rose said. She linked her arm through her daughter's. "How did I do in the briefing? Commanding enough?"

Valya fought the urge to roll her eyes. "Sure."

"I bet you're excited to go on the mission, right?" Rose elbowed her lightly in the ribs. She tilted her head to make eye contact with Valya. "Russia is where your father grew up."

"Well he's not there now," she replied. Valya felt a pang in her stomach at the thought of her father. For all of the stories and grand tales of his adventures, she still didn't know how to feel about him.

"Valya, talk to me," Rose said. She stopped in the hallway and turned to look at Valya. "What is going on with you? I know you're angry about the mission, but-"

"No, you don't know. That's the problem!" Valya glared at Rose. "You signed me up for this mission like it's some kind of birthday gift to go hunt Strigoi without even asking me if I was comfortable with it. With working with you. Your help is the last thing I need right now!"

"Valya..." Rose said in a warning tone.

"People already think I'm a spoiled brat," Valya shot back. "Pollock brings it up every chance he gets. He's an asshole, but he's right. I might as well have a fucking crown on my head for being related to you: Stasla Belikova, the perfect princess of Corinth. Do you know how awful it is to be living under your own mother's shadow your entire life?"

Rose pressed her lips into a thin line. "Valentina. You're not a spoiled brat; never have been, never will be. You're worthy of being picked, you have to believe me on this one. The mission is one you've been assigned to, which means you need to do your job or you'll be working in agriculture with Sasha before you know it."

Valya cast a glance down at her shoes. She mumbled, "That doesn't sound so bad."

"You hate dirt," Rose pointed out. "You wouldn't last three minutes."

"Well, at least I'd be able to work with people who actually want me there," Valya replied.

Rose's face softened. "We want you here. Pollock might be a dick, but he needs you just as much as I do. I will always need my baby girl. You understand?"

Valya shrugged, but kept her eyes on the toes of her boots.

"And I'm sorry," Rose finally conceded.

Vayla's head shot up. "What?"

"I should have asked you before appointing you to the team," Rose ran her thumb over Valya's cheek. "You always were a stubborn one; just like your father."

"Alright, I accept your apology." Valya rolled her eyes. "Now stop getting sappy on me."

"That's not nearly as sappy as I can get, Valentina Dimitrovna." She said Dimitri's patronymic with a loving sigh. Rose pulled Valya in for a hug. "He'd be so proud of you."

Valya stiffened for a moment, then returned the gesture, her chin tucked into the crook of Rose's neck. "Thanks, Mom."

They separated. Rose patted Valya's shoulder. "Don't mention it. Now, go take a shower. You stink."

Valya scoffed in indignation. Rose smiled, the corners of her eyes creased with worry. They walked back to their unit arm-in-arm.

* * *

Rose heard a knock on the door of her unit half an hour before dinner was scheduled to take place for those on daylight shifts. She opened it to reveal Sasha, who was dressed nicely in a borrowed navy blue suit jacket and a flannel button-down. He held a white rosebud in one hand.

"Evening Stasla," Sasha said. He nodded his head respectfully.

Rose was confused for a moment before remembering what day of the week it was- date night. She stood on the tip of her toes to embrace him. "Hey Sasha. Come on in."

Sasha entered their unit with a deliberate and imposing grace, his head brushing the top of the unit's metal ceiling. It wasn't a large front room, but it definitely felt lived in. The door to Valya's room was covered in various pieces of coloured paper that formed her name in a mosaic. Rose's room simply said _Mama_ in messy Cyrillic.

"She'll be out in just a second," Rose said. She folded a clean shirt that had been drying on the rack next to their modest kitchenette. She couldn't remember if it was her shirt or Valya's, but that didn't seem to matter much anymore since Valya had grown up. They were both the same size, even if Valya was a few inches taller.

"I came early on purpose this time," Sasha said with a bashful grin. He leaned up against the edge of the kitchen table, his hands in the pockets of his jeans. "If there's one thing I know, Valya likes to take her time."

Valya was notorious in how long it took her to get ready to go anywhere appearances were important, but Rose thought it was nice that she insisted on having date nights with Sasha. After living in Corinth for so long, it was easy to fall into a routine that you couldn't pull yourself out of. She'd never experienced the spontaneity of the normal world, but Rose still thought that was for the better. Spontaneity got people killed.

"Did you have a nice shift today?" Rose asked. "The vegetables at lunch yesterday tasted very fresh. I'm guessing the harvest went well.

"Yeah." Sasha nodded enthusiastically. "The carrots are almost ready. The older earth users have found a way to speed up the growing process without any side-effects, so we can grow them in only a week now. The soil is having some trouble replenishing itself, but I'm sure we can fix that."

"Cool," Rose replied. "I hope it will mean less trips to the city. We already spend so much money as it is."

Rose had been Sasha's number one fan when Valya had become his friend back when she was barely high enough to reach Josiah's knee. He was a vibrant and studious young man, with good discipline when he sparred during training; he'd even pulled one over on Rose once. Ever since his mission six months ago and the subsequent demotion she'd stuck by him, but their relationship was tainted by his mistake.

"I just wanted to say-" Sasha began, but was cut off by the door to Valya's room opening.

"I'm ready!" Valya proclaimed. She was wearing one of Rose's old dresses that she'd gotten on a mission in Nevada and a sparkly cardigan that had most likely been purchased at a thrift shop while Valya had free time on missions. It was a strange mishmash of colours and textures, but civilian clothing was scarce at Corinth: it was usually only children that had anything normal and even that was recycled for younger generations once one outgrew it.

Sasha pulled Valya close and whispered in her ear. "You look beautiful, Valechka."

A smile tugged at the edge of Rose's lips.

"Oh shush." Valya slapped the lapel of his jacket lightly and laughed. She grabbed his hand. "Let's go!"

"Thank you, Stasla," Sasha said in earnest. "I'll have her back by-"

"Back by eleven, don't go outside Corinth, don't go into restricted sections, don't get into any trouble," Valya finished hurriedly. She leaned over and kissed Rose on the cheek, her hand grasping Sasha's tightly. "We've got it, Mom. Chill."

"I will never chill as long as you live in my house, Valya!" Rose called after them. Valya made a face as she closed the door.

Minutes later, Rose's comm, a cross between a pager and a walkie-talkie, buzzed with an incoming message. She bent down to pick it off the counter and pressed the button on the side.

"Go for Stasla," she said.

" _Hello most-esteemed Stasla_ ," came Josiah's voice through the speakers. " _The fox and the hen have flown the coop. I repeat: the fox and the hen have flown the coop_."

Rose cracked a smile. "Stop stalking them, Jo. It's weird."

" _Negative, Stasla_ ," Josiah replied, mirth in his voice. " _Report to the roof of your sector for a good time. I have beer and Adam_."

"Oh? He hasn't divorced you yet?" Rose replied. "Pity."

" _Get your ass up here, Rose. We're partying_."

Rose rolled her eyes. "I'm coming. Keep your pants on."

* * *

Ten minutes later, Rose had found a way to finagle herself onto the roof of the stacked shipping containers. One container wasn't too hard for her, but most makeshift buildings within Corinth were stacked three high and the stairs stopped at the topmost unit. She rolled over onto the roof, where Josiah and his husband Adam were sitting in lawn chairs, a cooler between them.

"I am not young enough to do that anymore," Rose said as she clamored to her feet.

"You're not young enough for a lot of things anymore," Adam quipped. He handed her a beer from the cooler.

Adam was the sort of person whose personality made it feel as if he was taller than he was; in actuality, Rose towered a good four inches over him. He had dark, coiled hair cut close to his scalp and skin the colour of dark earth, marred only by a glittering Alchemist tattoo on his left cheek.

When Rose had first met Adam, she taught him how to break the seal on the tattoo using tips she'd picked up from Sydney. Although the Alchemists had believed Adam to be missing for several years after he disappeared while stationed in rural Minnesota, he'd still wanted to be free of the tattoo.

"Val's boy toy has some moves," Josiah said from his perch. He was wearing sunglasses indoors, despite the fact that the lights were dimmed to reflect the sun going down outside.

"And I'm sure she'd _really_ appreciate you calling him her 'boy toy.'" Rose made air quotes and sat down in the space behind the cooler, but between Josiah and Adam's chairs. "Has watching their date night become a spectator sport now?"

Josiah shrugged. "We don't get cable. Popcorn?"

"You've gotta be shitting me," Rose said in disbelief. Josiah produced a pag of pre-popped popcorn, like the kind you'd buy at a gas station.

"I would never shit you, Stasla," Josiah said.

"I can corroborate that statement," Adam added. "He doesn't shit his closest friends."

"Duly noted," Rose said, facing the popcorn with child-like glee. She dug in, her hands quickly coated in a light dusting of white cheddar powder. "So what have the lovebirds been up to since they left my house?"

"Well, they walked to _his_ house," Josiah said with a sardonic edge to his voice. "Then he led her to the roof of his sector- which she didn't have any trouble navigating in _heels_ , I might add- where he'd set up a picnic complete with candles and rose petals."

Rose looked into the distance, where she could make out Valya and Sasha sitting on a patterned blanket, two plates of food between them. Rose knew Sasha would have made more if he'd been able to, but rations were pretty tight at Corinth when it came to internal food, and Sasha wasn't allowed out on missions anymore. Most Cadets got luxuries when they'd finished their assignments, but Sasha was an exception. He simply wasn't allowed.

Rose shivered thinking about the contents of his file. For all of his niceties, he was a dangerous individual.

 _Not unlike you_ , she reminded herself. _People deserve second chances_.

Still, she balked at the idea of Sasha, a boy who was like a son to her, going down such a dark path. She'd been the one to go over the case when he was dragged back to Corinth covered in the blood of a civilian. The feeling afterwards was like the sensation of someone in a family doing something incredibly awful, but they still love them regardless. The only difference being that to Sasha, Rose was both the judge and the juror.

"I don't trust him," Adam said as he looked through the binoculars. "He's a shady kid."

"He's hardly a kid, Adam," Rose pointed out. "He's twenty-five. And Valya loves him, so keep those suspicions to yourself."

Adam sighed. "You can't tell me he doesn't put you on edge too."

Rose shrugged. "I've known him his entire life. He's not some monster."

"Doesn't mean I can't be suspicious." Adam leaned over and took a handful of Rose's popcorn.

"It means you have to be civil around him." She jerked the bag of popcorn away. "And keep your damn hands off my popcorn!"

"Let the girl have her fun," Josiah said. "From what I've heard of the Pennsylvania mission, she won't be having it for much longer."

"Yeah," Rose sighed, her stare drifting off into the distance where the pair were busy eating their dinner. After returning from Pennsylvania a week ago, her idyllic life with her daughter didn't seem so whole anymore.

Sasha used the small amount of fire magic he could muster to light the candles and Valya said something to him, fork poised in her hand. He shook his head just as she tried to force feed him what looked to be sauerkraut.

"They make a cute couple," Rose said. She smiled, thinking that Valya had found someone. It took a bit of pressure off of her.

"Yeah, you didn't have to deal with them in your trainee class," Josiah said. "When I took over from Masha because she was having her baby I had to deal with those two idiots falling over each other to get to the nearest supply closet."

Rose clapped her hands against her ears. "I _really_ didn't need to hear that."

"It's true," Josiah replied, prying Rose's hands away. "And I caught them every time."

Rose shot him a glare.

Adam tapped Rose's shoulder. "Look, something's happening."

All three whipped their heads around to look at Sasha, who was reaching into the pocket of his coat for something. Rose gasped.

"Is he going to propose?" Josiah asked, on the edge of his seat.

"He can't do that! He needs to ask me first," Rose said.

"Excuse you, Stasla," Adam said. "I think he needs to ask us. We're her fathers, after all."

"Oh shut up," Rose slapped his knee lightly.

They watched Valya and Sasha with rapt attention as the object Sasha was retrieving turned out to be just another rosebud, identical to the one he'd given her when he'd arrived at Rose's unit half an hour earlier. He use his powers to make it bloom. They slumped back into their chairs, deflated.

"Well, that was anticlimactic," Rose said, her hand in the bag of popcorn.

"Did you want him to propose?" Adam asked. He wiggled his eyebrows up and down.

She shoved a handful of popcorn into her mouth. "No."

"They've been together for four years; there's no reason why he wouldn't have asked her to marry him yet," Josiah said.

"She's still so young!" Rose exclaimed. "And it's not like no one knows they're together already."

"Valya is as old as you were when you got married, and you were with your _one true love_ since you were seventeen," Josiah pointed out. " _And_ he was significantly older than you, if I recall correctly."

Rose slid down on the roof of the shipping container to the point where she was practically lying on the floor, her eyes looking up at the ceiling of the warehouse Corinth was contained in. Her feelings for Dimitri never wavered, even after all of the years apart. She sighed, her hand still buried in the open bag of popcorn.

"You still love him, don't you?" Josiah asked softly.

"Every day," Rose said without thinking.

"Is he going to be involved in the aftereffects of Pennsylvania?" Adam asked.

Rose pressed her lips into a thin, hard line. "Not if I can help it."

* * *

"I'm impressed," Valya said as she looked down at the dinner Sasha had prepared. "I never knew there were so many ways to cook a cabbage."

Sasha wrinkled his nose. "It's better than last week when you endeavored to steal chocolate from the dining hall kitchen and were _caught_."

Valya leaned over him, their noses almost touching. She grinned. "Live on the wild side, Aleksandr."

Sasha hesitated before going in for a kiss, with half-lidded eyes and a lick of his lips. "Is Colonel Hollis still watching us?"

"Probably," Valya shrugged. She was tantalizingly close to him as they sat on the roof of the shipping container, her arms on either side of his waist. "He's too busy kicking back and drinking beer with Adam and Mom."

Sasha shook his head. "I don't like that they think they have to watch us like that. We're not birds."

"I'm not going to see you for another month," Valya said, impatience edging into her voice. "Can we please talk about anything _other_ than my mother?"

"Like what?" Sasha's voice was suggestive. He played absentmindedly with the hem of her dress.

"Like not talking at all."

Valya leaned forwards and their lips connected in a kiss. It was mere moments before they'd sunken to the ground like teenagers again, desperate to remember everything about the other before an extended time apart. Valya's cardigan quickly went to the wayside, as did Sasha's borrowed sports coat.

In the distance, a disgusted Josiah Hollis covered his and his husband's eyes with an exclamation of, " _Aw, fuck_."

* * *

The next morning, dawn filtered in through the trees outside of Corinth's perimeter. A large black SUV waited to take the team to the airport, where a place was poised to fly them halfway across the world. The rest of the team was packing up the car with equipment they would need to carry out the mission. Valya clenched her hands around the strap of her backpack. She stood on the gravel walkway, frozen. Pollock brushed past her with a sanctimonious glare on his face. She didn't bother returning the gesture.

She looked over one shoulder at the dusty panes of glass that encased the greenhouse. If she squinted, she could pretend that Sasha was there, working amongst the plants for the upcoming harvest. A pang of longing hit her chest.

"You ready?" Rose put her hand on Valya's shoulder. Her eyes were kind and held excitement, but a bit of apprehension as well. Valya wondered why.

"Yeah," Valya said, nodding. She grasped her mother's hand. "Let's go."


	5. Rokin

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All translations in this chapter were done by Em (objectiveheartmuscle).

Valya was dead on her feet after the journey from Vancouver to Balandino Airport in Chelyabinsk. It was the closest airport to their main destination: a small village high in the mountains near the border to Kazakhstan. They'd been traveling for almost thirty hours straight, with an eight hour layover in Moscow during the middle of the night. Valya had snored on Hershey's shoulder for most of it, with Hershey choosing to sleep on top of Jasper. She swore she heard Rose snap pictures.

"Welcome to Rokin," Rose said as she opened the door of the rental car.

To call Rokin a small village was generous; it was more of a pit-stop on the way to Kazakhstan. There was only one paved road, with a post office, corner store, cafe, and a small community center. Everything in Rokin was edged by towering trees. While they were already rather high up in the mountains, they could still see even larger peaks in the distance. It was like being transported into another world.

"We're meeting our host here, then unpacking our things in preparation for a round of patrolling tonight," Rose said. "We want to get a lay of the land. Cadet Belikova, Specialist Mora, you have the first patrol shift."

"Yes, General," Jasper and Valya chimed in varying degrees of enthusiasm.

"The sun will only just have set, so you'll be fine. Not a lot of Strigoi get up that early. Although," Rose looked around at the density of the trees. "You'll have to tread carefully."

Jasper and Valya exchanged a look of exhaustion. They were more ready for a nap than they were patrolling the woods surrounding Rokin for hours.

The oddest thing about Rokin was that even though it was late afternoon and the sun was still hanging at the edge of the horizon, there was no one out on the street or in the shops. Valya rubbed her sleeve against the window of the cafe and noticed the hours for the day.

_Tuesday: 8am - 2pm._

Sunset wasn't for another hour at the least, and even then it was only four in the afternoon.

"This place has a weird feeling to it," Hershey said in a voice just above a whisper.

Valya bit her lip as she inspected the cafe through the windows. It looked like people hadn't been there in months. "Yeah. I agree."

"I hope we're not here long," Hershey added. "I don't think there's much in the way of wifi here."

Valya chuckled. "No Instagram updates, then."

"Like we'd even be allowed to make an Instagram account," Hershey replied. "I'm worried about getting my data back to Corinth. If the hard drives get damaged, there's no way to save them."

"We better make sure they aren't damaged, then," Valya said with conviction. She looked Hershey in the eyes and nodded. "As creepy as this place might be, we've got your back."

Hershey smiled. "Just make sure my brother doesn't die tonight?"

"That I can promise."

An old truck pulled up beside the rental car Rose had gotten from the airport in Chelyabinsk. It was yellow, with peeling paint and rust stains. A middle-aged woman exited the driver's seat and shook hands with Rose. They spoke Russian in hushed tones.

"Team," Rose said. "This is Ekaterina Omarova, our host for the mission. Her house is just over the ridge. We're going to follow her on foot for now, so take your gear."

Valya wondered absentmindedly why they'd even gotten the rental car in the first place, but she knew that the host family probably didn't want to draw a lot of attention to her house, and one way to do that was to have a massive black SUV parked directly outside. She couldn't think of what a house in the village of Rokin would look like; images of the cottage from Snow White and the Seven Dwarves came to mind. It was offensive, that much was true. Valya _definitely_ needed to get out more.

" _Privyet_ ," Valya said to Ekaterina. She continued in Russian, " _Thank you for letting us stay in your home_."

" _It is my pleasure_ ," Ekaterina said with a smile that, while hard, held warmth. " _We want it gone_."

Valya took her pack out of the back of the car and furrowed her eyebrows. " _It?_ "

Ekaterina nodded, but didn't say anything. The emphasis on the dehumanization of whatever was terrorizing the surrounding forests of Rokin seemed to be a sore subject. Rose was right; the townspeople were superstitious, and superstition often encouraged silence as well. Valya decided she needed to talk to the townspeople to get information, but that was under Gin's job description, not hers.

The team followed Ekaterina through a packed dirt road lined with irregularly-shaped stones. The air smelled of a late spring and rotting vegetation, a slight breeze rustling through the leaves of the treas like whispers. The back of Valya's neck prickled; they might not have been watching the forest, but the forest was watching back.

Ekaterina's house wasn't far from the town center and was set back into the trees like an animal lying in wait. The house was one story tall, with dull red shutters standing guard on either side of long, dark windows scratched with dust. At first glance, the house appeared abandoned but like everything in Rokin, it too had a spirit. Valya shivered uneasily in the cool air.

 _The hills have eyes indeed_ , she thought.

Ekaterina took a set of keys from the chain around her neck. The dark silver keys clinked lightly as they unlocked not one, not two, but four locks on the front door.

" _Medvedi_ ," Ekaterina explained in Russian.

No bears Valya knew could unlock front doors. She exchanged a glance with Rose, who said nothing.

Inside, the house was cozy and looked lived-in, if a bit dark and dusty. Valya wandered through the small foyer, her bag on her shoulder, as the rest of the team made for the stairs to the basement. Pictures of a happy family lined the walls of the hallway: a younger Ekaterina with a man (her husband, Valya presumed), and a small girl. The photo looked to be around a decade old.

"Coming?" Hershey's quiet whisper came from the top of the stairs.

Valya nodded and tore her gaze away from the photographs, tucking a lock of hair behind her ear. The stairs creaked as she descended into the basement, an equally as dusty place, but with significantly more space.

"Cadet Belikova, would you care to translate for the team?" Rose asked with a pointed look at Valya.

 _This is your chance to be useful_ , is what her dark eyes said to her daughter. _Take advantage of the opportunities you're given_.

Valya cleared her throat and stood next to Ekaterina, prepared to translate anything she said into English.

" _Zdravstvuyte. Dobro pozhalovat' v moy dom._ ," Ekaterina began. " _Vi budete zheet' v podvale, no rasreshaete v glavnom dome v lyuboy moment._ "

"She wants to welcome us here," Valya said, the act of live translation still a bit rusty at the moment. Ekaterina smiled at her. "And we can go upstairs at any time, but we'll be staying in the basement."

" _Pozhaluysta, vvodite cherez zadnyuyu dver' tak chto moya doch' spokoynoe_ ," Ekaterina continued. " _Ona spala bi v nachale dnya._ "

"We should use the back door to come back because her daughter..." Valya furrowed her eyebrows and spoke quiety with Ekaterina in Russian. "Her daughter... keeps odd hours. She goes to sleep very early."

Ekaterina nodded. " _Ne skazhite c moey docher'yu o svoey missii. He privlekaet yeyo voobshche._ "

"We can't talk to her daughter about the mission," Valya bit her lip and looked at Ekaterina out of the corner of her eye. "She can't be involved in what we're doing."

" _Yesli vi prinosite yego v moy dom, ya budu ub'yu vas vsekh v pervuyu ochered'._ " Ekaterina stared at them with a stone-faced sincerity that transcended language barriers. Jasper nearly flinched, but Rose nodded, her face grim. " _Obed budet v shest' chasov._ "

"She'll kill us if we bring the Strigoi killer back here," Valya translated. "And dinner's at six o'clock."

"No daughter, be quiet, dinner. Got it," Pollock parroted. "Now, let's get to work."

" _Spasibo_ ," Rose said to Ekaterina. The older woman smiled and shook Rose's hand. She looked at Valya knowingly before ascending the basement stairs.

"She's an odd one," Valya said in an aside to Rose.

"She's a valued contact, you mean," Rose corrected. "Strange doesn't mean bad, Valya. She'll be able to help us as much as we help her."

The bags of equipment went on the floor in a circle as the team began to set up a makeshift home base. Because they were staying in Rokin for a projected six weeks, they needed to create a stable workspace first or the crucial first pieces of data would be lost in the flood that happened later. Studies that were this long usually only revealed the bigger picture after it was all over, and did Valya want it to be over already.

She helped Hershey clear off the desk in the corner and begin setting up computer equipment used to track Strigoi activity. Valya knew that most of her patrol shift with Jasper would be out placing sensors in the forest and nearby hills: a tedious process that was invaluable as a first alert system in the case of an attack, but mind-numbingly boring for the those who had to cover the miles it would take to properly map out the area.

"Think we'll find anything?" Valya asked as she placed a plug converter on the computer cord.

"Let's hope so." Hershey adjusted the monitors. "It'd make living here a bit easier."

Valya shrugged. "I don't get out much, so this is just an excuse to work on my tan."

Hershey raised an eyebrow. "I don't think the famous Russian sunlight is going to help you there."

Valya glanced back towards her mother, who was speaking in hushed tones to Gin and Pollock in a corner of the room. Pollock clenched his fists, but pulled them behind his back to calm himself. Gin, conversely, seemed to agree with whatever Rose was saying. She glanced over and locked eyes with Valya for a moment. There, Valya saw a glimmer of something, a secret held in Gin's eyes.

A quiet voice in the back of her head told Valya that this was only the beginning of the secrets.

* * *

They had barely finished setting up Ekaterina's basement when Jasper and Valya had to go on patrol. Armed with stakes and hundreds of tiny motion sensors, they set out into the woods.

The trees blocked out any trace of sunlight that was left in the sky, plunging them into total darkness. Valya was familiar with this sort of feeling- the woods surrounding Corinth in the Canadian wilderness were similar, but these trees felt odder, colder. She chided herself for thinking that; of _course_ the forest was different. It was Russian, not Corinth.

"What do you think so far?" Jasper asked. He placed one of the sensors on the ground and covered the small silver disk with a layer of earth.

"About what?" Valya asked as she did the same a few yards away from him.

"This is your first international mission, right?" he asked with a distracted nonchalance. "What do you think about getting out of Corinth for once?"

"I'd rather not be here because of nepotism," Valya snorted. "Other than that, it's fine. The fresh air is appreciated."

Jasper chuckled. "You're not here because of nepotism, trust me. If anyone is, it's me."

Valya shot him a confused look, but continued setting sensors in the ground. They'd made a good amount of headway between Ekaterina's house and the town center.

"Have you ever noticed that where Hershey goes, I go?" Jasper asked her.

Valya shrugged. "I just thought you worked well together."

"Hershey works well. I work... mediocrely." He clenched his jaw, then loosened it, as if remembering he needed to have a calmer temperament. "They make sure to add skilled fighters to the mission, ones that don't usually get hurt."

"Who told you that?" Valya asked.

"Colonel Hollis," Jasper replied.

"Ouch."

"Yeah, ouch."

Valya reached into the pack over her shoulder for two new sensors. "Well, if it's any consolation, I tend to get hurt a _lot_."

Jasper laughed, the sound odd and hollow in the dense wilderness. "The sentiment is appreciated."

A twig snapped in the distance and they both reached for their stakes in record time. Jasper and Valya went back to back, weapons at the ready.

"Do you see anything?" Valya hissed out of the corner of her mouth.

"No." Jasper's voice was tinged with fear. "We really need flashlights out here."

"No chance," Valya said. "They'd draw too much attention."

Jasper didn't reply as they continued to scan the trees. After a few minutes when nothing appeared, they relaxed and stowed their stakes.

"We're almost near town," Jasper said. "We should make a perimeter, then head towards the other mountain where two of the attacks took place."

Valya nodded. "Good idea."

As they turned to go, a shape darted out of the dark treeline. Valya caught a glimpse of bright red eyes and went for her stake. The bag of motion sensors hit the ground, spilling hundreds of small silver discs on the forest floor. The Strigoi went for Jasper first, and Valya swiped at it, missing its head by an inch.

"Get down!" she shouted to Jasper.

He ducked and rolled away from the Strigoi, giving Valya an opening. She grabbed the Strigoi by the hair and tugged its head back hard. Jasper managed to slash it across the neck with his stake. It emitted a shriek of pain through the night air.

Valya used the Strigoi's distraction to flip it around and shove her stake up through the ribs. She felt the silver tip pierce its heart and the Strigoi struggled, finally going limp only moments later.

The Strigoi slumped onto her. "Shit. Help me move him."

She and Jasper moved the body behind a tree. Valya placed the heel of her boot on the Strigoi's chest and yanked the stake out of its body.

"Fuck," Jasper said. He nudged the body with his toe. "Ten minutes here and we've already got a kill."

Valya set her mouth into a hard line. Her hands were trembling as she cleaned off her stake on the thigh of her jeans, but squared her shoulders when she talked to Jasper. "One less bastard to worry about."

"I guess." Jasper stared at the body for a moment, then took out his phone and began recording a video. "Strigoi kill, classification two. Carried out by Specialist Mora and Cadet Belikova. Kill shot: Cadet Belikova. Weapon: stake. Time of kill: 6:23pm."

Valya looked at the dead Strigoi with apprehension. Where there was one, there were ten more. She stepped over the spilled sensors and began putting them back in the bag.

"You ready to go?" She asked Jasper.

"Yeah. I'm just going to send it to Stasla real quick." A notification came back a moment later. Jasper chuckled and glanced at Valya. "She says good job, especially to you."

Valya smiled despite herself. She stood and slung her bag over one shoulder. "All in a night's work."

* * *

Valya and Jasper arrived back at Ekaterina's cottage near midnight. There hadn't been any more excitement as they mapped out the first few square miles of Rokin, but they both still felt on edge. Jasper made a beeline for the basement stairs, intent on sleeping for as long as he could, while Valya went to the kitchen.

She opened the first few cupboards, but there was nothing but glasses and an endless stack of plates. Her stomach grumbled audibly.

"Shut up," she muttered. A door opened behind her, causing her to jump.

A girl no older than fifteen entered the kitchen. She was dressed in a long, handsewn skirt and a top three times too large for her waifish frame. Her skin was pale, almost translucent, and Valya spotted a faded blue ribbon in her bright blonde hair. She had to be Emiliya, Ekaterina's daughter from the photographs. She looked like a ghost.

" _Mama doesn't keep them in there_ ," she said in Russian, her voice barely above a whisper. Emiliya reached past Valya and into a cupboard filled with mismatched crockery. She emerged triumphant with a box of shortbread cookies coated in chocolate. With a light giggle, she pulled one out and handed it to Valya. " _Here_."

Valya took the cookie. " _Thank you_."

Emiliya smiled knowingly and ate one as well, then put the box back behind a stack of unused, dusty cups. " _You will find it_."

" _What?_ " Valya furrowed her eyebrows.

" _What you're looking for_." Emiliya touched a finger to Valya's heart, then made for the door back to the hallway.

" _Good night_ ," Valya called out after her.

Emiliya paused at the doorway and turned to face Valya again. " _Is it_?"

She disappeared into the darkness of the hallway.

* * *

A week passed in Rokin with barely any sign of Strigoi or the creature causing the attacks that had brought the team there. They'd completed mapping out a majority of the area with sensors, but uninhabited places like the mountain's peak and the nearby caves lay unexplored. Valya came to know Ekaterina well, but her enigmatic daughter stayed in her room and away from the team. Gin had attempted to interview a few citizens of the town, including family members of past victims, but doors shut in her face more often than they were opened. She'd asked Valya to come along to the interviews in the hopes that a nice, young Russian girl would ease their fears.

"Well that was a complete waste of time," Valya said as she flopped down onto the overstuffed couch in the sitting room.

"Not quite," Gin said. She took out her tape recorder and placed it in her pocket. "We know that they don't know anything about the vampire world. That's useful."

Valya shrugged, exhausted from having to translate in-person for a good portion of the day. "Not knowing is worse. If we could just-"

Gin cut her off with a swift shushing noise and indicated towards the basement door with her chin. Valya raised an eyebrow, but stood anyway and tip-toed towards the stairs with Gin. They pressed their ears to the rough-hewn wood. Valya could just barely make out two voices that were shouting at each other.

"You aren't being fair to the team," said one voice. "Withholding information-"

 _Pollock?_ Valya mouthed to Gin.

"Withholding?" The other voice was icy. "The information I know isn't available to the public. It's a secret for the greater good."

Gin nodded, then mouthed back: _And Stasla._

"How can you even talk about the greater good?" Pollock shot back. "We're in the middle of nowhere trying to make sure Strigoi aren't picked off one by one by some ghost. The Pennsylvania mission was a mistake."

"The Pennsylvania mission is the reason we're all going to stay alive, Pollock," Rose retorted. "All you have to do is shut up and do your job. Can you handle that?"

"I don't even know what my job is anymore. You-"

Valya leaned too hard on the door and the latch made a noise as it slid closed.

"Someone's up there," Rose said. "We'll finish this conversation later."

Valya kept her ear on the door as long as she could to hear Pollock's reaction, but was dragged away from the door by Gin. They busied themselves with Gin's recording equipment and began chatting loudly.

"We sure got some information from that interview, didn't we?" Valya said, her voice loud and stilted.

Gin shot Valya a glare, then played along. "Yeah, we even might have a few new leads."

The basement door swung open and Rose entered the sitting room with a glance at the pair.

"What's this about new leads?" she asked. She had her hands stuffed into her pockets as if she didn't know what to do with them.

Gin and Valya exchanged a look of worry. They were both terrible at improvisation.

"The caves!" Valya said, her voice reaching an unnaturally high pitch. "We think there might be something at the caves. They're an ideal place for Strigoi to hide out, but we haven't seen any when we patrol past them."

"No caves," Rose shot the idea down quickly. "It's an easy place to get trapped and killed. We don't know how many Strigoi might live there."

"Right." Valya's tone was uneven. "We should put some sensors near the entrance though, right?"

"I said, no caves, Valya," Rose repeated. "That means, no caves."

Valya raised her eyebrows and looked at Gin with an uneasy expression. From the argument they eavesdropped on to her mother's demeanor now, something was definitely up.

She nodded. "No caves, then. We'll go back to patrolling the mountain peak."

"Good idea." Rose seemed distracted. She made for the door. "Remember, there's no patrol tonight. Enjoy your night off."

"Will you be there, Stasla?" Gin asked. "We thought of making s'mores."

Rose smiled and shook her head. "No, I'll be taking care of some business in town. Enjoy your s'mores."

She left the house, but the uneasy feeling lingered.

* * *

"Coming in hot!" Valya shouted as she plopped down next to Jasper on the makeshift bench they'd cut from the trunk of a fallen log. She threw down a bag from the corner store. "We've got all of the essentials. Well, most of them. I found some chocolate, but it's this weird dark stuff, so we'll see how that goes. There also weren't graham crackers, but I did find what amounts to shortbread in this country. And lastly, there were no marshmallows, but someone had the foresight to bring those from home."

She pulled a package of jumbo Jett Puff from her backpack with a wicked grin. "Have at it, kiddos."

"Don't call me a kiddo," Pollock said dryly. He snatched the marshmallows and opened them, taking two. "But good idea, brat."

Valya gasped dramatically. She pressed her hand to her forehead like a Southern belle. "Did everyone hear that? Did Liam Pollock actually pay little ol' me a compliment? Oh, happy day! I could die right now."

Pollock rolled his eyes. He pressed his two marshmallows onto a stick. "Don't count on me doing it again."

Gin snickered behind her hand and winked at Pollock when he saw her. They sat together on a log opposite Valya and jostled for room to roast their marshmallows like teenagers.

"Hey medic," Pollock shouted to Jasper. "Think you can stoke this fire a bit?"

Jasper shrugged and held out his hand. Flames poured from his fingertips towards the fire, the wood crackling cheerily in the darkness. It momentarily grew a bit too big and Hershey intervened, using her affinity for air to calm it down.

"Want one?" Valya held the bag out to Hershey. She took a marshmallow with a quick smile and began hunting for a stick on the ground to roast it on.

"This was a good idea, Valya," Jasper said. He stuck his marshmallow directly into the fire and it quickly turned black. "Let's just hope the fire doesn't attract any attention."

"And even if it does, there's five highly-trained Strigoi killers here waiting to give them what they've got coming," Valya said. "They don't stand a chance."

Jasper chuckled. "You've got that right. Will Stasla be joining us?"

Gin shook her head. "She said she had something to attend to in town. I'm not sure what."

"She's been acting strange lately." Jasper's glance slipped to Valya. "Anyone know why?"

Valya shrugged. "She's a weird lady. I would know: I've had to live with her my entire life. Did you know she tattoos her _molnija_ marks herself?"

"Really?" Jasper asked. "That's a Court thing, not a Corinth thing."

"She gets Pops to do it if she can't reach the spot," Valya said. "Her entire back is filled with them now. She says it keeps her focused on the goal, that she won't stop until her entire body is covered in _molnijas_."

"She's a good egg, your mom," Pollock said.

"Yeah," Valya sighed. Her head shot up a second later. "Wait, was that the _second_ nice thing you've said in my presence? Oh, you love me now, I can tell. Don't deny it, Pollock."

Pollock leveled a glare at her.

She sprang from her seat and walked around the fire to wrap her arms around his neck. She began singing, "You really _like_ me... You want to _hug_ me, kiss me and _marry_ me!"

He extricated himself from her arms, a begrudging fondness for Valya developing despite his own misgivings. "You touch me again and I will murder you in your sleep, Belikova."

"No, you won't." Valya flounced back to her seat with a grin on her face. She picked up her stick for her marshmallow and stuck her tongue out at Pollock.

He growled.

"Let's all put our differences aside tonight and focus on a common goal," Gin said diplomatically. "Eating sugar."

"Hear, hear." Jasper raised his stick, the roasted marshmallow on the end a dark, flaky black.

They sat in companionable silence as the fire crackled happily and chocolate melted in their s'mores. A light column of smoke rose above the trees and drifted up into the stars that were scattered across the night sky. They laughed and smiled, bantered and argued, until the sun rose over the peak of the mountain. They enjoyed themselves until sleep couldn't be warded off any longer, and then they returned home. It would take another day for them to figure out what had gone wrong that night.

Rose Hathaway had been murdered.


	6. Shadows

The sun had come up by the time the team had decided to stomp out the fire they'd made the night before. Sleep pinched at the edges of everyone's minds and Valya cursed herself for staying up so late when she needed to help out the next morning. Many people in Corinth learned to train themselves to live on less sleep, but Valya wasn't one of them. She savored her time in her bed, wrapped in several threadbare quilts until her mother barreled into her room and ripped them off.

Sleep wasn't as important to her as friendship felt these days. She finally felt accepted by every member of the group, not just Hershey and Jasper. She would take countless sleepless nights over being the odd one out any day.

Pollock held his hand out in a motion for all of them to stop and placed a finger on his lips.

_Quiet._

The forest was silent, a stray ray of sunlight peeking in from between the trees as the wind rustled around them, but what Pollock had noticed was not a sound. A bare arm, half hidden by the thick trunk of a tree, lay in the leaves.

The team sprung into action, the festive air of the campfire quickly dissipating in favour of a stern, serious demeanor. They fanned out and surrounded the body in a tight formation; Jasper reached down to check the pulse on the arm. He shook his head.

_Dead._

"It doesn't look like there's any wounds." Jasper said.

The team studied the body, a woman lying face-down, her clothes almost completely covered in leaves. Valya couldn't recognize her, if she was from the town or simply a traveler passing through. The consensus amongst them was that a human must have gotten to close to the Strigoi that lived in the mountains and was killed. That is, until they turned her over.

Gin and Hershey recoiled immediately in shock, Gin's hand grasping Pollock's, but Valya stood where she was, frozen in time, as she gaze upon the face of her mother.

Rose Hathaway was dead.

"Stasla," Jasper said, breathless. He began checking her over for wounds. "Oh my god."

"Jasper," Valya said, her tone wavering. She clenched her hands into fists. "What happened?"

"I-" Jasper continued to search for any sign of a Strigoi attack or even a bullet wound, but was coming up empty.

"What happened?" Valya's voice held barely-contained rage. Her shoulders were trembling.

"I'm trying to figure it out, Valya," Jasper shot back. "Give me a second, alright?"

Valya attempted to compose herself. Gin grabbed her arm and pulled her into a hug to distract her, turning Valya's head away from Rose's body.

"We need to move her," Gin said.

"Where?" Pollock asked.

"Anywhere but here," Gin retorted. "She's lying in a forest, covered in leaves. We can't leave her here."

"I can clear off one of the tech tables in the basement," Hershey said quietly. Her eyes hadn't moved from Rose's body since they'd discovered her. "It's not perfect, but it'll do."

Jasper nodded, grim, and gestured for Pollock to help him carry Rose. They hefted her body up onto their shoulders and began the slow, silent walk back to Ekaterina's house.

One down, five to go.

* * *

 

They placed Rose's body on a card table that was moved to the center of the room, in between the makeshift beds and endless tangle of electrical cords. A shaft of sunlight came in through the window and illuminated Rose's face. Somehow, it didn't feel as if the mission was nearly as important anymore.

"This wasn't how it was supposed to happen," Pollock whispered. Even he was cowed by the death of his mentor. He touched her hand lightly, like she was a wax figure.

"How was it supposed to go then?" Valya said, her shock and confusion quickly turning bitter. "Did you two have a plan?"

"Shut up, Valya." Pollock bowed his head and leaned on the edge of the card table for support. He squeezed his eyes shut.

"Was it what you were arguing about yesterday?" Valya continued.

"I said, shut up!" Pollock stood suddenly, his eyes wild.

" _What were you two keeping from us_?" Valya shouted at him. Tears pricked at the edges of her eyes. "All I know is that yesterday I had a mother and now she's dead after having an argument with you. Sorry if you're looking a little guilty right now!"

"I didn't kill her!" Pollock roared. "What we were talking about doesn't matter anymore. It's useless to our mission, anyway."

"Then was it the Pennsylvania mission? We all want to know, Pollock!" Valya opened her arms wide and gestured wildly. "C'mon, I'm all ears."

"You don't understand a single thing about what your mother actually did in Corinth, do you?" Pollock spat. "You just skip around in the background, having a grand old time while she actually got work done. She was busy protecting all of us, you especially, although I have no clue as to why. You're nothing special."

Valya screamed and launched herself at him. Gin and Jasper rushed to pull her back before she could do any damage, but Pollock already had that covered as he swatted her to the ground. Pollock stood over her, his head blocking out the light from the window.

"We need to pay our respects, Valentina," he said, his voice cold. "You should do the same."

Valya clutched her cheek, a large red handprint forming. She forced back tears that were threatening to spill over. If there was anyone who didn't deserve to see her cry, it was Liam Pollock.

Pollock took a phone from a bag next to the computer and made for the door. "I need to inform main command what has happened."

Gin and Hershey helped Valya to her feet.

"What will happen now?" Valya asked. She brushed dust off of her clothes.

"We'll get a new commander," Gin said with an astonishing amount of composure.

"And then?" Valya rubbed her cheek one final time.

"We return to Corinth and start again."

* * *

 

They'd moved Rose outside in preparation for her funeral. Sending the body back to Canada would cost too much money and open up too many avenues for questions that would end in the discovery of Corinth by both Court and the human authorities. Valya didn't know what main command had decided to do with everything else of Rose's things, but she assumed they would have some sort of normal memorial service when they arrived back.

Valya sat down on the stones outside of Ekaterina's house and stared at her mother's body as it lay on the same card table she had been placed on earlier, the sun streaming down from between the trees. Jasper had inspected her body, but found no wounds and no signs of toxins or magical interference. He'd decided to clean her off and change her into her best Corinth uniform. It felt cheap to Valya: like a hollow, toy soldier version of her mother.

"I'm not going to clean your room," Valya said softly. She glanced at Rose's hand, stiffened and pale with rigor mortis. "It was always messy, but I'll leave it just how you like it. I'll try to do the dishes, though. I think I left the muffin tin in the sink, but I never told you. I made some blueberry ones for Sasha before we left."

Valya stood and walked closer to the body. Rose looked younger in the sunlight, like she was simply sleeping. Unfortunately, Jasper couldn't reform Rose's expression from one of terror into one of serenity. Her mouth was twisted, but he'd managed to wire it most of the way shut.

"Pops is gonna be so mad, Mom." Valya slipped her hand into Rose's and attempted to pretend that, even for a moment, her mother was still alive. "He always said that he had to go first. I don't think he can live without you." Valya's voice caught in her throat. "I don't think that I can either."

She fell to her knees, clutching onto Rose's hand for dear life. The tears that she'd been keeping in since the discovery of Rose's body in the early hours of the morning bubbled over and Valya found herself, sobbing and rasping, on the sodden grass next to her dead mother.

"It wasn't supposed to be like this," Valya sobbed. "None of it was supposed to go this way. You have to be alive. _Please_. Please be alive."

She screamed into the bright afternoon air until her throat became raw. She screamed and yelled and thrashed until she couldn't speak anymore and suddenly, like someone had flipped a switch, she became calm again. Shakily, Valya got to her feet. Her hand found Rose's again.

"Tell me what you want me to do," Valya whispered. "Please tell me. I can't go on until I know what to do next."

"You stop talking to dead people, that's what."

Valya heard footsteps behind her and turned to face Pollock. She wiped the edges of her eyes.

"What do you want?" Valya asked with vitriol.

"Not me, main command." Pollock handed her the phone. "Someone wants to talk to you."

Valya snatched the phone from him and turned away. She put it to her ear. "Hello?"

A voice filtered through the speaker. " _Valya_?"

She nearly began crying again, but managed to catch the sob in her throat instead. "Pops?"

"Yeah, I'm here, honey." Josiah's voice was music to her ears.

"She's dead." Tears pricked at Valya's eyes. "S-she's gone."

"I know, I know, Valya," Josiah said in a soothing tone. "But I need you to focus. Are you listening?"

Valya nodded, then remembered that body language doesn't translate very well over the phone. "Yeah. I hear you."

"I need you to finish the mission," Josiah said. "You need to have Mom's funeral, then continue with your research."

"What?" Valya felt her stomach sink. "We should be going home right now. Corinth just lost its commander!"

"We can't get an earlier transport for the entire team back to Canada," Josiah continued. "And whatever killed your mom is still out there. You need to stay and find it."

"N-no, we don't have a team leader anymore," Valya said. "Protocol says that if a member dies, we have to come back. It's the right thing to do."

"You mom had other plans for this mission, Valya," Josiah said. There was an edge to his voice. "You're to stay where you are until the scheduled return date. That's the end of it."

"Who's going to lead us?" she asked.

"Pollock will," answered Josiah. "He's the second-in-command."

"No." Valya clenched her jaw. "No way. I will not be following anything he does. Pollock is a total dick."

"Language, Valentina!" Josiah chastised her. "You will do as you're told or face disciplinary action. Remember, you're still a soldier of Corinth."

Valya was silent, but she couldn't disagree with Josiah. He was right: she still had to do her duty no matter who her commanding officer was or what had happened to the members of the team. In the eyes of the law, she had to follow protocol.

"Fine," Valya said through gritted teeth. "Whatever you say."

She could hear Josiah sigh on the other line. "I love you- remember that. Dad sends his love too."

She bit her lip. "Love you too. I'll be home soon."

"I'll be waiting." Josiah paused. "Follow Pollock: he knows what's best for the mission."

She sighed. "Of course he does. Bye."

"Goodbye, Valentina." Josiah hung up the phone.

Valya handed the phone back to Pollock with a stern glare.

"Everything clear?" he asked.

"Crystal," she replied sullenly. She shoved her hands deep into her pockets. "Guess we're staying here for a while."

He narrowed his eyes at her, but avoided eye contact. "Until the mission ends."

* * *

 

Ekaterina arrived back from work as they were building the funeral pyre and regarded Valya with a grim expression. Now that she was the only fluent Russian speaker left, all business with the team had to go through Valya- Hershey's rudimentary knowledge of Russian and hesitance to talk to anyone that was not her brother or Valya notwithstanding. She walked up to the team and, without pausing to ask what they were doing, began stacking the wood along with the others.

" _Spasibo_ ," Valya said quietly.

" _She was not the first to be taken by it_ ," Ekaterina said in Russian. " _She will not be the last_."

Valya paused for a moment and brushed bark off of her hands. " _Is that what happened to your husband?_ "

Ekaterina sighed. " _Da_."

Valya wanted to ask her to elaborate, but she knew Russian society, especially society this far up in the mountains, to be notoriously closed off. It was rude to pry into Ekaterina's personal life, but Valya had a morbid curiosity. She needed to know how her mother died. Still, she returned to cutting wood and adding it to the pile.

" _His name was Petyr_ ," Ekaterina said after a few minutes. " _He and Emiliya were on a walk when it happened_."

Valya froze. " _She saw it?_ "

Ekaterina's grasp on the tree branch tightened. " _Yes and no. She was there when he died, but it did not take any interest in her. She was spared; the only one in town._ "

" _Could she help us find it?_ " Valya asked.

Ekaterina shook her head. " _No. She was different before her father died. Now she only talks in riddles and fairytales. She will be of no help to you_."

" _Does..._ " Valya hesitated. " _Does Emiliya know things? Thinks she shouldn't be able to?_ "

Ekaterina glanced towards her house. The curtains in one of the windows shifted and Valya swore she could see the flash of a faded blue ribbon. " _She is human_."

Valya thought of her last encounter with Emiliya in the kitchen. The young girl had a strange aura about her that felt all at once mystical and foreboding. She had seen death- touched it, even- and returned intact. Mostly.

_You will find it._

She struggled to understand what Emiliya had meant by that. Valya was looking for whatever was haunting these woods, but it was more than that. That was the mission: straightforward, clear-cut. She knew when Emiliya touched her heart that the girl meant something else. Monsters come in all forms, not just those who kill in the night.

_What you're looking for._

" _She was a good woman_ ," Ekaterina said to Valya. She placed a hand on Valya's shoulder in a rare show of affection.

" _So I've been told_ ," Valya answered. She put down the piece of wood she was carrying and chuckled. " _You know, everyone's talking about how nice she was but she could be pretty awful too_."

Ekaterina smiled softly. " _She was a mother after all_."

" _Yeah_ ," Valya said. Her shoulders fell. " _You have any vodka? I think we'll need something for the funeral_."

" _Of course._ " Ekaterina broke out into a wide grin. Valya thought that she should do it more often. " _What kind of Russian do you take me for?_ "

" _Thank you_ ," Valya said. " _For everything_."

" _As long as you rid the mountains of the evil, I will help you_ ," Ekaterina said. She glanced back at the window. " _We can't do it alone_."

Valya nodded. " _We will try our best._ "

It took another two hours before the pyre was ready and Pollock carried Rose's body, wrapped in a sheet from Ekaterina's linen closet, to the center. He took a moment by her body, but Valya couldn't tell what he was doing.

"This is going to smell awful," Jasper said. "I don't want to be disrespectful, but it will. Just warning everyone."

Valya shrugged. "She always said she wanted a Viking funeral, but there's no waterfalls nearby to send her over."

"Prepare your nose plugs everyone," Pollock said sardonically. Gin scoffed and cuffed him over the head.

Ekaterina and Emiliya joined them for the makeshift service, but as the wind rustled through the trees that evening they all realized that no one knew exactly what to say. Ekaterina passed around chipped cups with vodka in them. It smelled potent.

"Should-" Valya looked at Rose's body amongst the intricate stack of wood. "Should we say something, or...?"

"The brat should start," Pollock said. She could tell he wanted to down the vodka already, but he was waiting for the go-ahead. "She's Stasla's daughter, after all."

"Now's not the time for name-calling," Gin said diplomatically, her hand on Pollock's shoulder. "I'll do it."

Valya let out a breath and relaxed her shoulders. She despised public speaking and even though she'd spent her entire life with her mother as her best friend, she couldn't think of a single thing to say. It was odd- there was so much that they'd done together that nothing stood out in particular. Valya had the strange sensation that she never really knew who her mother was, only what she presented to her.

"General Stasla Belikova recruited me when I was seventeen years old," Gin began. "I had been born into a poor family of dhampirs and after a group of Strigoi came through town, my entire family was dead. A group from Corinth came to kill the nest, but it was too late. The town was decimated and I was alone."

Gin looked at her glass and hesitantly took a sip before continuing. "Stasla was running it. She found me in the hospital with four breaks in my left leg and said she knew I was a fighter. Seventeen and I'd killed two Strigoi in the madness, just like she had. She asked me if I'd like to join their group. I had no prospects at the time: no money to send me to St Vladimir's or another academy, no family, and no Moroi to protect. And then..." Gin looked at Valya. "Well, then she showed me a picture of her daughter. She told me that anyone in Corinth could make a new family for themselves. I looked at this little girl, just a baby, and thought: I want that. I didn't want to be alone for the rest of my life. So in a way, Stasla saved me, like she did all of us. Even though I had to have a cast on my leg through the first few months of fighting drills."

Everyone chuckled.

"A boy in my trainee class used to make fun of me for it." Gin tipped her glass towards Pollock. "And I felt at home. I will never forget what Stasla did for me." She turned to the funeral pyre and raised her glass. "May your journey be easy."

Everyone drank from their glasses as Gin stepped down and took the lighter from Pollock. They exchanged a meaningful glance, then handed the lighter to Valya, who stared at it in shock.

"You want me to do it?" She asked.

"She might have felt like a mother to us," Gin began. "But she was your actual flesh and blood. This is your duty."

Duty. The word had been thrown around her entire life, but Valya never felt the true meaning of it until now. Family was her duty, her mother was her duty. Valya took the lighter with a somber nod and flicked it open. The flame danced happily.

"Time to say goodbye, everyone," Valya said. Then, quietly, "See you in the next life, Mom."

She threw the lighter onto the funeral pyre and Rose's body was quickly engulfed in flames. Valya watched as the wind blew the ashes away into the night sky, and felt a little piece of herself go with them. Valya clenched her hands into fists by her side, but they unclenched as Hershey interlocked their fingers. Valya turned towards her, her breathing unsteady.

"It's alright," Hershey said. She squeezed Valya's hand. "It'll all be okay."

Valya nodded and placed her head on Hershey's shoulder. They stood by the fire, the flames lighting up the night and keeping the darkness at bay for as long as they could. They watched the flames until there weren't any flames to be had, and with the last ember, Rose Hathaway was finally gone from this world.

From across the ashes, Emiliya Omarova looked at Valya with an inscrutable expression.

_You will find it._


	7. Anna

Hours felt like days to Valya as she sat in the middle of her bed. No one in the team had gotten any sleep in the past few days and it was unlikely that she'd get any upcoming ones either. Thoughts fought for space in Valya's brain as she squeezed her eyes shut, desperately willing herself to sleep.

Jasper crouched by her and tapped her lightly on the shoulder. He said something but she couldn't hear him.

"Huh?" Valya spun around, dazed.

"It's your watch," he repeated. "You're on until three."

Valya nodded slowly and stood, grabbing her gun and her stake off of the table. "Right. Watch. I almost forgot about it."

Jasper looked at her and bit his lip. "Do you want me to sit with you?"

"No," She shook her head and brushed past him on her way to the stairs. "I'll be fine. If any Strigoi arrive, I'll sound the alarm."

"Valya," he called after her, his voice barely above a stage whisper as not to disturb the others sleeping in the basement. Valya ignored him.

Jasper glanced around him then followed her out onto the porch where she sat, weapons at the ready, as she peered into the darkness. He sat next to her on the porch, the moon shining brightly on the path that led into the woods.

"Are you okay?" he asked

Valya scoffed. "I hate that question."

"What?"

"I said, I hate that question," Valya repeated. She looked over her gun and cleaned off tiny specks of dust and dirt. "Of course I'm not okay. You don't need to point it out to me."

"That's not-" Jasper sighed. "We just want to help."

"Well, then you can stay out of my damn business," Valya retorted. "I get enough bullshit from Pollock, I don't need it from you."

Jasper rubbed his head, thinking. "It's our business too. She was our leader as much as she was yours."

"Did she give you life and an unfulfilled quest for revenge as well?" Valya said sarcastically. "Because if so, by all means: join me in my misery."

Jasper averted his eyes. "You need to keep a clear head out here, Valya. Or-"

"Or I'll end up like my mother?" Valya's tone was biting. "No thanks. I'm going to kill that bastard myself; slit it throat to navel, then mount the head above my mantle because in this scenario, I have a fireplace. Then I'll sip some expensive vodka and yippee-kay-yay out of here."

They lapsed into an uncomfortable silence.

"Have you called Sasha?" Jasper asked.

"You know I can't do that," she said. "No personal calls on the mission phones."

"I think in this case, they'll make an exception," he said. "I know you two are close. Maybe talking to him will help."

Valya ran her hands through her hair. "Maybe. I bet he's devastated right now. She was like a mom to him too. He has no one, you know."

"Don't we all?" Jasper raised his eyebrows.

Valya shrugged.

"You two are pretty serious from what I've heard," Jasper said.

"What are you getting at, Mora?" She narrowed her eyes at him.

"Just that you always have someone to lean on when the going gets tough." Jasper patted her on the shoulder. "Remember that."

He stood, he boots surprisingly quiet on the uneven wood of Ekaterina's front stoop.

"Jasper?" Valya asked as he was halfway through the door.

"Yeah?" He paused.

"Can you make sure Pollock doesn't get at any of her stuff?" She cast her gaze downwards, where she was picking at the edges of her nails as a distraction. "He's going to take it for some Stasla shrine or whatever and I have other plans."

Jasper smiled. "Yeah, I can do that. Goodnight, Valya. Or should we call you Stasla now too?"

Valya scoffed. "I'm not worthy of that title." Then, quietly, "Not yet."

He nodded. "Valya it is, then. Goodnight."

"Goodnight."

* * *

The team continued their investigations in Rokin with a cloud of darkness hanging over them. People in Corinth had been lost before; they were no strangers to death, but this was different. It was like losing a messiah. Rose represented much more than simply a ruler to them, but the intangible concept of hope for the future. Hope that the world might be free of Strigoi sometime soon. Hope that they could live outside of their compound's walls.

It took Valya an entire week before she was strong enough to look through her mother's things and she did so with hands that shook so much she could barely hold the pen in her hand. Slowly, she began writing down what was in Rose's pack on a piece of paper that she could keep for inventory.

_Comms unit, clothing (two Corinth-issue shirts, two Corinth-issue pairs of pants, and assorted civilian clothing), a Russian newspaper dated March 28th..._

Valya smiled when she found a pack of Big Red gum. Her mother always had a propensity for cinnamon-flavored candy and anything spicy. She pocketed the gum and continued to rifle through the bag, but there was nothing out of the ordinary. She laid out the contents of the backpack on the hard concrete floor of the basement.

Rose Hathaway's life was in this backpack.

Valya pulled the pack of gum out and unwrapped one of the leftover pieces, sticking it in her mouth. The rush of sugary sweetness was exhilaratingly uncommon to Valya. Candy wasn't exactly a normal thing in her food rations to begin with.

The backpack puzzled Valya and she shook it out, but nothing other than dust fell to the floor. Rose had been hiding something before she'd died and Valya knew there would be some kind of evidence of it in her things, but she wasn't sure where. She wasn't stupid enough to hide it under her mattress like a teenage boy hiding issues of Playboy and she wouldn't have had it out in plain sight.

Valya reached for the knife in her boot and carefully cut the lining of Rose's backpack open. She'd worked her way around half of the backpack when she saw the corner of a cream-coloured piece of paper wedged towards the bottom. The breath went out of Valya's lungs.

This is what she'd been waiting for: a sign that Rose's death wasn't for nothing.

She sheathed the knife and pulled the paper out from the lining, holding it up to the light. It was an envelope folded in half, pieces of a dark green wax seal breaking off into Valya's hands as she unfolded it. She couldn't make out the crest, but there were flecks of gold in the wax. Dragomir colours. There wasn't any writing on the outside of the envelope.

Valya pulled out the letter, the same thick, cream-colored paper as the envelope. Everything felt fancy and elegant, but no one inside Corinth operated like that. Valya didn't want to entertain the thought that her mother still kept contacts outside of Corinth or, heaven forbid, inside Court without the knowledge of anyone else in Corinth. Her heart beat quickly as she read the letter.

_Anna,_

_Rokin, Ural Mountains. Omarova will find you. Keep the package safe. Stay until April._

_He still loves you._

_I do too._

Valya turned the letter over frantically, trying to see who had sent it, but there wasn't a clue. The letter itself was printed on what seemed to be a typewriter, probably to evade leaving any digital footprint. The paper it was on had a faint emblem printed on the back. Valya held it up to the light to reveal the Dragomir crest.

_Court._

Her heart hammered in her chest. Her mother was in deeper than she'd ever thought. Her father was at Court; her mother's past was there. How close had Rose become with her old contacts at Court? How did Valya know that they wouldn't find her? All her life, Rose had told her that Court would do terrible things to her if they'd found out who she really was.

Suddenly, Valya felt as if she couldn't breathe. She fell to her knees, the letter clutched in one hand and rasped against the cold, cracked concrete. A sharp pain ripped through her chest; she felt like she was having a heart attack. The door to the basement stairs opened and the rest of the team thundered down the stairs.

"Everyone stand back," Jasper said. He knelt by Valya. "She's having a panic attack."

"Pollock," Valya gasped. She threw the letter into the air and he caught it. "Explain."

Pollock read the crumpled letter with a crease in his forehead. The realization dawned on him that it was sent from Court and his blanched.

"It's-" He began.

" _Explain_ ," Valya said through gritted teeth as she attempted to regain her breath.

"It's from Court," Gin said in amazement. "Who's Anna?"

Valya had managed to regain some semblance of control of her breathing and rubbed her temples.

"It's a reference," Pollock said before Valya could answer. "Shadow-kissed Anna, St. Vladimir's dhampir guardian."

"Mom was shadow-kissed before she had me," Valya added. "Whoever sent this knew her back when she lived at Court."

"Someone inside Court was giving her intel on the mission." Gin took the letter from Pollock. "But that's impossible."

"What happened in Pennsylvania, Pollock?" Valya asked him. "You have to tell us now."

Pollock rubbed the shaved sides of his head and began pacing. "You don't understand, she would kill me."

"Just fucking say it!" Valya growled at him.

"Stasla was meeting someone," Pollock blurted out. "When she started sneaking off, I followed her. It was some guy in a guardian uniform that she'd meet in the woods a few miles outside of Court. I thought she was just meeting a new contact inside that we were going to add to our network, but I'm not sure anymore."

"Can you describe him?" Gin asked.

"Around Stasla's height, maybe an inch or two taller." Pollock seemed distressed. "I didn't get a good look at him. He had... blond hair? I think. Maybe brown. It was dark."

"Anyone you remember?" Gin asked Valya.

"I don't know anyone from Court," Valya said. "Mom never even kept pictures. All she'd tell me about was my father, who was apparently a beast, so it couldn't be him. There's also a woman named Lissa, but I highly doubt it was her."

Hershey knelt down with a concerned expression on her face and helped Valya to her feet. She brushed off Valya's jacket.

"Do you think...?" Hershey's voice trailed off.

"What?" Valya asked.

Hershey glanced around at the group, conflicted. "Do you think, maybe, that's there's a slight chance that the person from Court sent her here not so she could fight whatever's here, but for another reason?"

Rose always spoke of Court like she couldn't return for fear of repercussions for a long-committed crime. Someone there must have wanted to kill her.

"But it whoever sent it loves her," Gin said. "That makes no sense."

"Court hated her, though," Valya added. Anger clouded her thoughts. "They sent her here to die."

"Valya-" Pollock interjected.

"No! Hershey's right!" She was becoming worked up and shook Hershey's hand off of her shoulder. "We have to go and find who sent this!"

"Oh my," Hershey said quietly. "Valya-"

"Valya, you can't," Gin said. "You'd risk exposing us all if you went to Court."

"But what if her murderer is there?" Valya asked. "Do you not care about your precious Stasla enough to avenge her death?"

Valya began pacing around the confined space of the basement, her mind flicking through all of the different options. She kept coming back to one: kill who killed Rose. Her mother was everything to her, her entire world.

"Please, Valya," Gin placed a hand on her arm to stop her pacing. "Don't follow up on this. What's done is done. You can report it to Colonel Hollis when we return if it makes you feel any better."

Valya took in a shuddering breath and nodded, doing her best to conceal the cogs that were whirring in her mind. She wouldn't let Rose's death go without being acknowledged. If the rest of the team wanted to ignore it, so be it. She would do what she had to do on her own. "Fine."

Pollock looked at the letter one more time before handing it back to Valya. "I don't want to keep it."

"Really?" She took it from his hand. "You don't want to add it to your Stasla shrine?"

He shook his head. Valya noticed that it was the first time that Pollock ever looked truly sad. His face was drawn and his shoulders hunched. She felt unsettled.

"Did you love her?" Valya asked softly.

Pollock cracked a smile. "Didn't we all?"

Silence filled the room. Then, suddenly, Pollock snapped back to his normal self.

"Okay team, we have patrols set up for tonight," he said. "Specialist and Cadet Mora, I want you two to go over the data we've gained in the past few weeks. Belikova, you're on solo patrol before nightfall. I'll be joining you once the sun sets. Let's move out."

A flurry of activity replaced the uneasy feeling among the team members and normalcy began to set in once more. Valya felt the letter that was folded in the pocket of her trousers and began formulating a plan. She would take a page out of her father's book: good things come to those who wait.

* * *

It took another few weeks before April arrived in Rokin and the team packed up their equipment to go back to the Chelyabinsk airport. Valya shut the door to Ekaterina's house and felt an odd sensation as they left for their car.

It was like leaving home.

The events that had happened at that house and in Rokin made her feel almost like she had bonded with the village. The door latched shut and Ekaterina was there to lock the door with her necklace of keys.

" _Bears?_ " Valya asked with a smile.

" _Bears_ ," Ekaterina said.

They loaded up the car quickly and Valya turned to Ekaterina to thank her, but the woman was already pulling her into a hug.

" _Spasibo_ ," Ekaterina said.

Valya was unsure of what to do, but hugged her back nonetheless.

" _Spasibo_ ," Valya said. They exchanged a significant look and as suddenly as it had happened, it was over.

It wasn't until they'd arrived in Newark Airport after fourteen hours, haggard and dreary from the unending travels, that Valya was able to put her plan into motion. She spotted one of the departure signs, pretending that she needed to figure out the gate for their Vancouver-bound flight.

_Philadelphia. Gate C52._

Bingo.

"Want to go get some Starbucks?" Hershey asked.

Valya shook her head. "I'm going to go to the bathroom. Meet you at the gate?"

Hershey smiled and nodded, leaving in the opposite direction.

Valya took her bag and walked towards the bathrooms at the other end of the terminal, ducking in for long enough that the team had left the line of sight. Then, she started off towards gate C52 with the startling feeling that from now on, she would walk this journey alone.

Corinth would have to wait. Court was the new destination.

* * *

Valya stood on the highway that went from Philadelphia to Court, her thumb in the air. The strap on her bag was beginning to dig into her shoulder and she wished that she'd pestered her mother enough to allow her to learn how to drive a car. She didn't have any form of human identification to help her rent a car and she was a few years shy of being able to rent a car on her own anyway. So there she stood, her arm extended into traffic, as a truck slowed to a stop next to her.

The truck driver rolled down his window. He was middle-aged, with a slight smattering of stubble across his chin. "You need a ride?"

Valya beamed. "If you're driving."

The truck driver indicated with his head to get into the truck. Valya opened the passenger side door and observed him, deciding that from the beer gut and disheveled flannel shirt she could definitely take him in a fight. She buckled herself in.

"Where you headed?" He started the truck up again.

Valya looked out the window with a triumphant smile. "West, around thirty miles."

He raised an eyebrow. "Alright."

The truck eased back onto the highway and as the sun began to rise over the horizon, Valya was one step closer to her goal.

* * *

Valya was dropped off by the truck driver with a confused ' _bye_ ' and a package of twinkies for good luck. The woods surrounding the road to Court were dense, but she could make out the trail and kept to the treeline in case anyone was coming or going from the gate. Valya shifted the backpack and started walking with quiet determination.

Court didn't appear for another three hours. Despite her endurance, Valya was beginning to feel drained; she hadn't slept in a full day and the weight of her mission was getting to her. Valya regarded the tall fence that edged Court with a skeptical glance. She could climb it, but she risked being seen.

Valya retreated to the woods to get her bearings.

She put her bag next to her feet and patted the side pocket absentmindedly, feeling for the silver stake and the gun she knew was somewhere in the mix. It felt like a security blanket to her and refocused her mind on the mission. What mattered was getting inside Court and finding the queen: she would listen to Valya and find the traitor. Valya had heard from her mother that the queen was fair and just: a Dragomir. If there was anyone to trust within Corinth, it was her.

Valya pulled the letter out from her backpack and read it again, the words already seared in her memory from nights spent repeating them over and over again. She ran her thumb over the letters.

_He still loves you._

She put the letter into her back pocket, wanting to keep it close, and put her stake into her jacket. It was better to leave her backpack here; she was going to stay at Court for any amount of time and if she was caught, she'd rather they not have a direct line back to Corinth. She covered the backpack with a pile of leaves.

Valya approached the fence with apprehension, but it didn't look too difficult to climb if she had a bit of help. She climbed a nearby tree and walked out onto one of the thicker branches. From there, it was just a short hop to the top of the wall. The barbed wire bit into the sides of her boots but she leapt off quickly, rolling on the ground to displace the impact.

Luckily enough, most of the guardians were gone because it was daylight. She brushed herself off and began walking towards the main Court buildings as if nothing was wrong.

Valya couldn't help but marvel at Court: it was something she'd heard being spoken of with such malice that she'd expected a prison, but this was beautiful. The buildings were made of old brick, with stately gabled roofs and little accents that made it feel like an oasis in the middle of the Pennsylvanian woods. Valya felt like she had stepped back in time.

The few people who were out walking ignored her, assuming she was someone's child or a novice. Valya found a few signs pointing towards the throne room and assumed that the queen would live somewhere nearby. Getting into the throne room was a bit trickier.

Valya pushed the door open with surprising ease and crossed the threshold, suspicious.

 _This is too easy_ , Valya thought, but she continued anyway. She might as well see as far as she could get.

Two guardians began walking behind her at a normal pace. Valya fought to keep herself from running. She needed to remain normal, as if this was something she did every day. She turned the corner and noticed that the guardians followed her.

Panic began to set in.

Valya saw the sign for the throne room at the end of the hallway and her heart leapt into her throat. She broke into a sprint and the guardians dashed after her. Valya's feet hit the ground at an exhilarating pace, her jacket flying behind her like a pair of wings.

Her mission was clear in her mind: talk to the queen.

 _I have to make it_ , Valya thought. She whipped her head around to look at her pursuers. _Faster. Faster._

The guardians behind her were fast, but she was faster, and she closed the last few yards between her and the door with ease. She had nearly reached the throne room door when it opened and she tumbled directly into the arms of someone much larger than her. Valya struggled against him and looked up into the face of the exact person she'd never wanted to see in her entire life.

Dimitri Belikov.


	8. Court

Valya awoke in a pristine interrogation room, her head pressed to the cool metal of the table. She could feel handcuffs gripping her wrists behind the metal slats of the chair. Her shoulders ached. Valya didn't remember what happened after she was captured by the guardians; she was close- so _tantalizingly_ close- to seeing the queen and figuring all of this out. She just had to go and rush into things.

 _Stupid_ , Valya thought to herself. _Stupid, reckless, thoughtless, stupid. Mom wouldn't do something like this._

Grimacing, Valya lifted her head and sat up, wisps of her ponytail falling into her face. She attempted to blow them away, but that only served to cover her eyes even more. She huffed like a bull and met the gaze of the person who sat opposite her.

"Nice of you to join us," Dimitri Belikov said, his hands clasped in front of him.

Dimitri observed Valya coldly and she did the same. He was like looking at something you normally only ever see in dreams: all of the pieces were there, but they weren't as perfect, no luster or sheen. He'd cut his hair short, a spare few inches of salt and pepper locks poking up like the hair of a chia pet, and there was a large scar that ran across one of his eyebrows and disappeared into his hairline. Valya decided that her mother was right: he was a beast of a man. Dimitri wore a special badge on his shirt. Whatever he did now, he was someone important.

Valya couldn't fathom for even a moment why he, of all people, was her father.

"Hello," she said coolly. "Would you mind taking these cuffs of? They chafe."

"The cuffs stay on," Dimitri replied.

"Are you sure?" Valya asked. She fidgeted in her chair. "Could you at least get me some lotion or something, because I'm dying here."

He glared at her and turned his attention to a piece of paper in front of him. "We have security cameras showing you scaling the wall surrounding the perimeter-"

"-more like jumping over," Valya interjected. "It wasn't too hard to do in the first place."

Dimitri continued. "-bypassing not one, but five security guards-"

"Are they really doing their jobs if an unassuming young girl can give them the slip?" Valya batted her eyelashes.

"-and attempting to enter the throne room," Dimitri finished. "Is that correct?"

Valya shrugged. "Yeah, pretty much."

"You aren't even going to defend yourself?" Dimitri asked.

"Why bother? It's true." She looked at him with the most innocent expression she could muster, but thought she probably gave off more of an impression that she was a lunatic rather than a young girl who had gotten lost.

"Why would a novice such as yourself feel the need to break in?" Dimitri asked. He made a few notes on the paper. "You could walk through the front door."

Valya shrugged. "I wanted to practice my parkour."

Dimitri bit the inside of his cheek, presumably to stop himself from chuckling.

"And I'm not a novice," Valya added. "You can write that down in your little case file or whatever."

"Not a novice and no promise mark?" Dimitri made a noise in the back of his throat.

Valya craned her neck to see what he was writing. Her expression twisted. "I'm not a blood whore either!"

"I need to ask you a few questions for our records." Dimitri said, fairly adept at ignoring her at this point. "Name?"

"None of your goddamn business," Valya retorted.

"Age?" He continued.

"Don't you know it's impolite to ask a lady her age?" Valya quipped. Dimitri glared at her again. "Twenty-three, if you're so curious."

"Place of birth?"

"Sunnydale," Valya said without missing a beat. "It's in California, if you were wondering."

Dimitri raised an eyebrow. Valya smiled in return.

"What business do you have here?" he asked.

Valya became quiet for a moment. "I need to speak with the queen."

"Why?" Dimitri sounded almost bored as he continued down his list.

"There's been a murder." Valya didn't meet his eyes. "The queen can find out who. She's the only one."

Dimitri glanced at her for a second before writing another note down on the piece of paper. "And your parents names are...?"

"Rose Belikova," Valya said. She clenched her jaw to stop herself from spilling all of her secrets. The less Court knew, the better.

He looked up from the paper slowly, deliberately, and leveled his glare at Valya. For the first time since the start of the interrogation, she had his attention. She could see a darkness in his eyes that was almost animalistic and downright terrifying. He stook and leaned over the table, his forehead nearly pressing against hers.

"What is your name?" He asked.

Valya steeled herself, matching his ferocity blow for blow. "Valentina Dimitrovna Belikova."

Dimitri's hand went for her throat and he pushed her flush against the back of the chair she was cuffed to. He was strong, but he didn't hold her tight enough to prevent her from breathing. "If you are lying, I will have your head. What is your name?"

"Valentina Dimitrovna Belikova," Valya spat. "I have come to avenge the death of Rose Belikova, my mother."

Valya took in a shaky breath, meeting Dimitri's eyes for the first time. "And your wife."

Dimitri's eyes were like fire: destructive and mesmerizing all at once. She knew in that moment why her mother had decided that Dimitri was her soulmate. He was beautiful, even if he was built for annihilation, just like Valya. She wondered for a second if he had felt her presence miles away in Corinth.

Suddenly, he stood and walked around the table to unlock Valya's handcuffs. She rubbed her wrists in surprise.

"What are you doing?" She asked him.

"I'm taking you to the queen."

* * *

 An alert was sent out to the members of parliament and one by one, royals were roused from their beds and shuffled into the great hall. A few had bothered to change, but most wore pajamas or sweatpants, a choice few donning a nightgown or stocking cap. It was an odd menagerie.

When everyone was assembled and order was restored, Valya was brought in by two guardians who tugged at her arms. She walked with them willingly despite her instincts screaming at her to run. They shoved her in front a podium, walls of Moroi glaring down at her from all sides. She began to rub her hands together; the restraints they put back on her wrists a bit too tight.

Valya leaned towards the microphone on the podium, an awkward angle when her arms were still restrained. It gave off feedback that reverberated around the hall and she winced. The lights in the hall were bright and the stares of the most important Moroi royals in the world didn't help much either, but Valya was never one that gave much thought to what royals thought of her.

Until now.

"Hello." The queen stood from where she was perched on her throne and addressed the room. "I apologize for calling an emergency council, but Head Guardian Belikov has requested it as a matter of security."

The queen was tall and willowy, with never ending lengths of blonde hair that she had twisted into a braid with green and gold ribbons. She was regal, even in a pair of grey sweatpants and a t-shirt from St Vladimir's, and to her side sat a man that Valya assumed to be her husband.

He was pale, with bright blue eyes that Valya could see even from a distance, and dark brown hair that had so much volume that it nearly stood on end. He looked bored and annoyed as he tapped a pen against the wood of his chair.

"Guardian Belikov," the queen gestured for him to begin.

Dimitri leaned over Valya to speak into the microphone. "I believe, Your Majesty, that it would be better if you hear it from the girl herself."

He retreated to stand watch at the wall and nodded for Valya to begin. She licked her lips.

"One month ago, a woman named Stasla Belikova died in the Ural Mountains near the Kazakh border," Valya began. "She was found dead in the forest during a reconnaissance mission. No weapons, no footprints... not a single sign of a struggle."

Valya clenched her jaw to stop tears from coming to her eyes.

"We knew her as Stasla, an elite fighter of almost mythic proportions. Strigoi run when they hear her name. But you... you knew her by something else." Valya took in an unsteady breath. She glanced at Dimitri. Oddly enough, his presence gave her strength. "Her name was Rose Hathaway."

A gasp rippled across the Moroi assembled in the hall. Suddenly, shouting broke out and the court members began arguing in a raucous flurry of movement.

"The girl is lying!" cried Marie Conta. "Hathaway has been dead for decades!"

The queen looked to her husband, who had stood up in shock, his face going as white as a sheet. They conversed quietly.

" _Silence_ ," The queen said. Miraculously, the din quieted. She turned her attention to Valya, who seemed so small in the sea of Moroi. "What is your name?"

Valya bit her lip and leaned towards the mic. "Valentina Dimitrovna Belikova."

The outcry arose again, this time stronger than before, and the queen had trouble quieting them down. All faces in the hall turned to Dimitri Belikov with such ferocity that it created a gust of wind.

"I said _silence_!" The queen roared. When the hall quieted down once more, she returned her attention to Valya. "What is your parentage, Miss Belikova?"

Valya glanced at Dimitri before answering. "Dimitri Belikov and Rose Hathaway. I am a dhampir."

All that met Valya's ears this time was silence: the entire audience was completely stunned. Members of Court stood from their seats to get a better look at her in a vain attempt to decode who she looked like most: a ghost or a legend.

"It's impossible..." The queen whispered, her hand going to her mouth. Her husband leaned to whisper something in her ear and Valya caught the queen's name.

_Lissa._

Valya didn't know how she hadn't realized it before. Her mother had talked endlessly about her best friend from her childhood but never mentioned that she was the queen. Valya supposed that it must have been to keep her memory untarnished. Being a queen did something to a person, but to Rose, Lissa was still a bright young girl gossiping in the halls of St Vladimir's.

"You have to help me," Valya said quickly. She could see Lissa's mind change as her husband spoke to her. "I need to figure out-"

"Thank you for notifying us, Miss Belikova," Lissa interrupted Valya swiftly. Her face was made of armor. "But I'm afraid that trespassing on Court property without being properly vetted is against the law." She nodded to Dimitri. "Return her to her cell. We will begin trial in the morning."

The guardians grabbed Valya by the arms and pulled her away from the podium, but she dug her heels in.

"No!" She cried out. She struggled against the guardians' grip. "You can't do this! She was your best friend!"

Tears began streaming down Valya's face. "She was your best friend and you killed her!"

"Pardon?" Lissa asked. She was taken aback by what the girl said, but more so by what an uncanny resemblance to Rose she bore. It was as if Lissa was 18 again, watching her best friend be dragged off to jail.

"You killed her." Valya sobbed. She'd collapsed on the floor, the guardian holding her by her handcuffs being the only thing to prop her up. "She didn't die by accident; someone set her up."

Lissa caught the eye of the guardian holding Valya. "Remove her restraints, please."

Valya stood, rubbing the spot where the handcuffs had dug into her wrist. She gave the guardian the stink eye when he attempted to guide her back to the podium, choosing instead to walk on her own.

"She-" Valya attempted to get her emotions back under control. "We were on a mission in Russia going off some anonymous intelligence. After we found her, I went through her things and found this."

Valya reached into her jeans pocket and produced the letter bearing the Court seal.

"Someone here knew she was still alive," said Valya. She gulped. "Someone sent her to her death."

"What are the contents of the letter?" Lissa asked. Her knuckles went white on the railing separating the seats of the parliament from the pit below.

Valya unfolded the letter carefully, her gaze switching from Lissa to Dimitri, who was looking at her curiously. " _Anna_ ," she began. " _Rokin, Ural Mountains. Omarova will find you. Keep the package safe. Stay until April_."

She paused and put the letter down. "That's it."

_He still loves you._

Dimitri stood stoic on the other side of the room.

"That's all that was there," Valya lied. She put the letter back in her pocket.

_I do too._

Lissa hesitated then, after a quick conversation with a parliament member to her left, she said in a booming voice: "Meeting adjourned. Essential personnel, please come to my office."

And like that, the queen left the room. As the door behind her closed, the parliament erupted into a flurry of shouts and arguments. Moroi that Valya had never known before this moment began shouting at her and she stumbled backwards. Dimitri caught her elbow and steadied her.

"What's going on?" Valya asked, confused.

"We must go to Queen Vasilisa's office." He led her towards the door. "Come. You don't want to keep her waiting."

Valya obeyed without a protest. Despite her original misgivings about her father, he seemed to be the only one with a clear head in this entire situation. Court was like a pit of vipers and Valya had been thrown into it without a second glance.

They reached Lissa's office in a few minutes and Dimitri gestured for her to wait as he slipped the door open. Valya thought about running; she could probably figure out how to escape Court and no one knew about Corinth yet, so she'd be able to get away without a trace. A small part of Valya told her to stay and see how things end up. She'd never been able to access her mother's personal life before this and going back to the empty unit that she shared with Rose felt like a walking nightmare.

Voiced behind the door shouted at each other. Valya knocked on the door lightly.

"We're _busy_ ," a voice shot back.

Valya flinched and opened the door a crack. "I know, but I have a feeling what you're talking about would make a lot more sense with me there."

A group of royals and guardians looked back at her, shocked. Lissa and her husband were there, as well as a tall Moroi man with elegant hands, a blonde human woman with a silver flower on her cheek, and a guardian with dark blonde hair that had stood behind Lissa in the great hall.

"Valentina," Dimitri said in a warning tone. It struck Valya as uniquely fatherly.

"Valya, actually," she replied. "You'd know that if you guys would let me get a word in edgewise."

"Is this her?" the Moroi man asked. He closed the space between them in two strides and cupped Valya's cheeks. His hands were soft. "My god, Belikov. She looks just like you."

"Get off me." Valya swatted his arms away the same way one would with a fly.

He laughed, his head tilting back to reveal his fangs. "She's definitely Rose's kid. There's no doubt about it." He pointed to Valya, his laughter reaching the point of hysteria. "You're not supposed to exist. There's no way you could exist."

" _Adrian_ ," said the blonde woman sharply.

" _Sydney_ ," he mimicked her. He turned to Dimitri. "You've gotten yourself into some deep shit, Belikov. Have you made sure she's not some sort of hallucination yet?"

"Adrian, honestly," Lissa said with a shake of her head.

"You can't tell me this doesn't reek of some Strigoi plot to get at you, Liss," Adrian said, his mood turning suddenly. "They could've sent her in thinking you would call a private meeting like this and then you're dead. Just like that, Lissa."

"Rose wouldn't have sent her if it wasn't important," Christian said. "It's not something from Strigoi; look at her! She's clearly a dhampir."

"Rose Hathaway is dead," Adrian shot back. "I would know: I buried her. There's no way she could have had a daughter unless the Strigoi are popping out babies now."

"Oh my god, shut up!" Valya interrupted their argument. "I'm living proof that my mother, Rose Belikova, had a kid. A live, dhampir kid. Maybe you should ask me the questions instead of tearing each other apart? Honestly, you're like teenagers."

"They apologize," Sydney said, side-eyeing the rest of the group. "It's just that-"

"-I'm impossible?" Valya finished. She raised an eyebrow. "So I gathered. If you're done, I'd like to get what I came for."

"And that is?" Lissa asked her.

Valya crossed her arms over her chest. "The head of my mother's murderer."

"Valya," Lissa began in a steady tone. "No one here killed Rose. We loved her."

"Then why would she feel like she had to keep me a secret all those years?" Valya asked. Her chest constricted. "I grew up hearing that Court was dangerous, that if anyone found out who I was, we'd both be killed. Does that sound like a woman who was loved to you?"

"I'm sure Rose had her reasons," Christian said to Lissa.

"Someone here betrayed her," Valya said.

"There's no traitors here!" Lissa shouted. "When she died, a piece of us all died with her. If there was even a chance that she was alive... we would have welcomed her back with open arms. Don't doubt that."

Valya pulled the letter out of her pocket and held it up to Lissa's nose. "The person who sent her this letter sent her to her death. You might have had twenty years to recover from the shock, but I had to burn her to ashes just a few weeks ago. She was real, she lived, and she lived without any of you. She chose me."

Adrian bit his lip. "That's the thing I can't figure out, little dhampir. Where _did_ she live?"

"Sorry?" Valya asked.

"I said," he turned to her with a dangerous look on his face. "Where did she live? She didn't raise you in the forest for two decades and she didn't go live with the Keepers. She loved indoor plumbing too much."

Valya faltered. "I can't say."

Adrian smiled wickedly. "Can't or won't?"

Valya turned to the queen. "I have to leave. I have a team that was looking for the monster that we were hunting, but we came up empty even after mom died. You have to look for the traitor."

Lissa shook her head. "I can't let you go back alone. You're the daughter of our head guardian; you should be put in training."

"I've lived twenty-three years of my life without whatever training your guardians get." Her eyes shifted around the room. "I think I'll be fine on my own."

She began backing up towards the door, but was stopped by someone standing in the way.

"I will take her," came Dimitri's voice. He had been so silent that Valya had forgotten that he was there. "The guardians can work on who sent Rose the letter and I will accompany Valentina back to her team."

"No." Valya drew out the word longer than was necessary. She held her hands up defensively. "I don't need a babysitter; I'm a fully-grown adult. Just give me a way to contact you and I'll be fine."

"You need transportation back to wherever it is that you live, yes?" Dimitri looked Valya up and down.

Valya bit her lip and gave a begrudging, "Yes."

"Court can provide a car and supplies," Lissa said. "Dimitri will go with Valya to...?"

"Canada," Valya said hesitantly. "That's all I'll say for now."

Lissa turned towards the guardian behind her and said to him in a hushed tone. "As in...?"

The guardian shook his head. "No. It must be something different."

Valya was struck with the notion that the guardian hadn't said anything up until this point and after Lissa's quick comment, he resumed his position and became stoic once more. He was around the same age as the rest of the people assembled and had a close-cropped head of blond hair with a beard that matched. It was odd to Valya that the Moroi had ignored him like he was a piece of furniture.

"I can't bring an outsider there," Valya said. "I'll break a ton of protocols."

"I will stay at a safe distance," Dimitri said. His expression softened when he spoke to her. "You will have nothing to worry about."

She pressed her fingernails to the inside of her palm, drawing blood. "Fine."

"Then it is decided." Lissa nodded. "And we can all finally go back to bed. Dimitri, kindly escort Valya to the guest quarters."

"She'll stay with us," Sydney interjected. "You wouldn't want to wake anyone to get Valya a room. She can sleep in Theo's bed."

A round of nods were exchanged throughout the room and Valya thought for an exhausted moment how nice a real bed sounded. Sydney took Valya by the arm and escorted her from the room.

"Goodnight everyone!" Sydney waved. Adrian followed them out.

When they were in the silence of the hallway, Sydney dropped Valya's arm and began walking out of the building.

"I am so glad that is _over_." Sydney chuckled. "They might have kids of their own, but they're hopeless with someone else's. Trust me: babysitting was always outsourced to the nice girl down the road." She held her hand out for Valya to shake. "I'm Sydney Ivashkov. Pleased to finally meet you."

"Valya Belikova," Valya said, taking Sydney's hand. "Likewise."

"I guess I would be your... aunt?" She rifled in her back pocket for a set of keys.

"Godmother, most likely," Adrian added. He brought up the rear, towering over both of them.

Sydney snorted. "That jokester there is my husband, Adrian."

"You can call me uncle or His Lordship." Adrian flashed a grin. "Whichever is more comfortable."

Valya did a spit take. "I'll stick with Adrian, thanks."

Sydney rolled her eyes as she stuck the key in the lock. The door opened without a sound. "We have a daughter named Sage. She's sleeping right now so try to be quiet."

Even in the dark, the Ivashkov family home was gorgeous. A wood-panelled foyer made way to an open kitchen glittering with granite and steel. She glimpsed a sitting room with overstuffed velvet chaise lounges and the biggest television she'd ever seen in her life. Valya had never encountered a house that was so _enormous_ before. It wasn't even the sheer size of it, normal for royals living in Court but towering compared to the tiny units in Corinth, but the decorations. Everything seemed impeccably pulled together. The house felt like a home.

"It's so big," Valya whispered. She touched the light green paint on one of the walls.

Sydney and Adrian exchanged a look.

"You can stay in our son's room," Sydney said. She led Valya up a set of stairs into a room that was overwhelmingly gray in colour. "He's at St Vladimir's completing his training right now."

Valya ran her hand over the dark grey duvet. The bed was unmade and it didn't seem as if their son stayed at home very often. Training in this world must take a lot longer than at Corinth if they have to be sent away for it.

"It's late," Sydney said. "You should get some sleep. We'll wake you up for breakfast."

Valya nodded slowly. "Breakfast. Right."

Sydney smiled softly. "Sleep well, Valya."

The door closed and Valya was alone in the room of someone who she assumed was her cousin. Her family. It felt stilted and wrong to her that there was anyone outside of Corinth that could claim her as a family member. Unease permeated everything she touched here.

And yet, Valya felt at home talking to Sydney, even if Adrian was skeptical of her. Valya didn't have many female role models, just her mother. Sydney was her aunt. She had an _aunt_.

Valya collapsed onto the bed, not even bothering to crawl underneath the duvet. An image of Dimitri's face floated behind her eyes and before she knew it, she was asleep.


	9. Barrels

Sage Ivashkov giggled at Valya over a stack of pancakes piled almost as high as her head.

"Have you killed lots of Strigoi?" she asked, the fork she was using to eat comically large in her hand.

Sage was a small child for her age, barely reaching up to Adrian's waist despite being eight years old already. She had a tangle of strawberry blonde hair that fell past the seat of her chair and a set of bright green eyes sparkling with curiosity.

"Don't be rude, Sage," Adrian chided. He set a plate of pancakes down in front of Valya. "What do we always say?"

"What's your business is your business," Sage chimed. She turned her attention to the pancakes.

Adrian leaned down and placed a kiss on his daughter's head. "That's right."

"She's cute," Valya said around a mouthful of pancakes.

"And she knows it." Sydney entered the kitchen and gave Sage a glance that made her dissolve into a fit of giggles.

Adrian shifted to the right to kiss his wife mid-pancake flip. She scrunched her nose and tapped him lightly on the shoulder.

"You should be getting ready for work," she told him. He responded by leaning in for another kiss.

Valya coughed and averted her eyes, still unsure of how to act around people in this world. Despite the uncomfortable feeling that came with the glimpse into the Ivashkovs' private lives; it felt like an oasis of domestic tranquility. She stabbed at the pancakes in front of her just as the doorbell rang.

"That must be Dimitri." Sydney grabbed her keys off the counter and made for the door.

Valya could hear muffled conversation at the door and ducked her head, suddenly feeling dwarfed by the mention of her father. Her stomach twisted into knots as the pair entered the kitchen and Valya turned her head to avert their gaze. Sage Ivashkov stared at Valya with a maple syrup-coated grin.

"Would you like some breakfast?" Sydney asked. She reached for a plate before Dimitri could even answer.

"I already-" he began.

"It's no trouble," Sydney cut him off. She took a few pancakes off the existing stack next to the stove. "Water? Orange juice?"

Dimitri sighed and sunk into the chair between Sage and Valya. "Orange juice, please."

"Hi Mitya!" Sage said cheerily to him. She waved her fork in his direction.

"Good morning Sage," Dimitri said with a soft smile. "How are you?"

"Fantastic!" Sage exclaimed. "Exuberant!"

Sydney chuckled. "She's been learning some more complicated words lately."

"Good," Dimitri said. "We need more bookworms in this world."

Adrian raised an eyebrow. "I see you've been picking up on Eddie's slang. Next thing we know, you'll be saying 'wicked.'"

Dimitri shrugged. "We spend too much time together as it is. Queen Vasilisa is sure he'll strangle me the next time I put on Russian music during diplomatic visits."

Valya snorted into her coffee, but immediately clammed up when Dimitri turned his gaze to her. "So, uh, who's Eddie?"

Dimitri's jaw clenched when she spoke. "He is the queen's guardian. I guard her husband, Christian Ozera."

"Oh, yeah, constipated dude," Valya said.

Adrian choked on his breakfast.

"What?" Valya asked. "He looked pretty pained yesterday."

Dimitri stood suddenly. "We should get going." He pushed his pancakes away, mostly untouched, and grabbed Valya by the arm. "It's a long way to Canada."

"Hey!" Valya shouted. Her fork clattered back onto her plate. "I wasn't finished."

"We will eat on the road." He held her bicep in a firm grip. "There is no use in wasting time."

"Thanks for staying with us, Valya," Sydney said warmly. A hint of something else was hidden behind her eyes, but Valya couldn't tell what. It almost looked like sadness. "You're welcome back any time."

"Thank you for having me," Valya said to Sydney and Adrian. She nodded at Sage. "Don't get up to too much trouble now."

Sage merely grinned in response, her mouth filled to the brim with breakfast.

"Now, Valentina," Dimitri said.

She rolled her eyes at him. If he wasn't busy trying to control her so much, she might follow some of his commands willingly. As it stood now, she wasn't too inclined.

They exited the house and walked around to the back, where two cars were parked. One, a sleek silver sportscar, was definitely not the vehicle they were taking.

"Get in the car." Dimitri unlocked the doors with a fob he produced from his pocket.

It was a sleek SUV that seemed a bit too auspicious for a simple road trip, but Valya figured that they must have a whole fleet of vehicles like this, a far cry from the few dusty Jeeps that Corinth kept on their lower level. After visiting Court, Valya felt painfully aware of how little she had grown up with. You don't miss what you never had until it's right in front of you.

She entered the car and put her seatbelt on. Valya felt odd without her bag then remembered that she'd stashed it outside the fence that surrounded Court.

"Can we make a pit-stop first?" Valya asked as Dimitri started up the car.

He paused. "What kind?"

Valya bit the inside of her cheek. "I left my things outside the gate. Guns, food, clothes, ID; all of that."

Dimitri sighed. "Fine. Then we're getting on the road." Then, "You shouldn't leave weapons lying unattended."

"Yeah, great time to lecture me, warden," Valya quipped. She settled into her seat with crossed arms. "I don't need advice from my jailer."

Dimitri swallowed and said nothing, but stopped a few yards from the outside of the Court gate. "Go get your things. Be quick: I don't have all day."

Valya grumbled something about his sourpuss demeanor and exited the car. In a flash, she was back with a weathered gray backpack with three columns painted on the side in white. The emblem of Corinth. She saw Dimitri glance at it, but if he had any questions, he kept them to himself.

"Where to?" Dimitri asked. He kept his eyes on the road.

"Vancouver," Valya said. He quirked an eyebrow at her. "I'll tell you where to go from there once we reach Vancouver."

"Alright."

They settled into silence then Valya, tired of the dark cloud that was hovering over the car, began rifling through the glove compartment.

"You got any music in this thing?" She asked. She pushed aside the registration and owner's manual; still no music.

"It's a Court vehicle," Dimitri said. "I doubt you'll find any CDs."

"So we're just going to travel cross-country with the emptiness between your ears as our entertainment?" Valya looked at him in disbelief.

"You can always plug your phone in," Dimitri said. He dug in the center console for the AUX cord.

"I don't have a phone, genius," Valya said. "They're trackable. Give me yours."

Dimitri rolled his eyes and produced an iPhone that was a couple of generations behind the newest model. He chucked it at her. "Go wild."

Valya plugged it into the AUX cord and muttered, "Unwise words, Belikov."

He grunted in response.

She glanced up at him, and watched him drive, such a normal activity for someone she'd thought of only in abnormal situations. She had dreamed of Dimitri conquering mountains, fighting Strigoi, charging into battle with his stake held high. Seeing him driving her home, disgruntled by her rebellious behaviour made him seem like a middle-aged dad.

It struck Valya that that was exactly what Dimitri was now: a middle-aged dad.

She wrinkled her nose. "You only have the best of the eighties on here."

"Golden age of music," Dimitri replied.

Valya made a gagging noise. "God, are we even related?"

"Only by blood."

She grew silent and pressed play on the next song she saw in the list."Every Breath You Take" by The Police came through the speakers.

"Are you always this chatty?" Valya asked. She rubbed her shoulders, suddenly cold.

"I don't usually have a conscious passenger," Dimitri replied.

"You really know how to bring a hush over a crowd." Valya crossed her arms. "What should I call you? Guardian Belikov? Dimitri?"

"Dad?" Dimitri offered. It sounded like a joke.

"No." Valya stared out the window, her voice going flat. "I already have one of those. His name's Josiah."

"Oh?" She could tell Dimitri didn't want to pry, but was also insanely curious.

"Yeah," Valya said. "He and Mom are- were kind of a big deal. Pops is like..." She smiled despite herself. "A superstar. Everyone loves him."

Dimitri snorted.

"Hey, don't make fun!" She wagged her finger at him. "He's all I have left now, I suppose."

"I might not have known you for very long, Valentina," Dimitri said. "But I am still your father."

"No, you're a biological inconvenience." Valya wasn't sure where all of the hostility was coming from. "If you didn't feel some obligation to take care of me, I'd be home free by now."

"If you weren't my daughter, you'd be in a cell right now," Dimitri said sharply. "Be thankful."

Valya crossed her arms over her chest, attempting to bring her anger down to a simmer. She wanted to shout at him, to scream and yell everything she had thought of him over the course of her life, but she couldn't bring herself to open her mouth. The Police continued to play over the stereo.

* * *

 They sat in silence for hours, the trees passing them by as Pennsylvania turned into Ohio and Ohio into Michigan. Crossing state lines took longer than Valya had imagined, but before she knew it they were at a motel struggling to get a few hours of rest. She'd given Dimitri the silent treatment ever since their argument at the beginning of the trip, but the effort was beginning to drain her.

Then, the following morning, Dimitri turned off the highway, crossing several lanes to make the exit.

"Woah, Nelly!" Valya exclaimed as she grabbed onto the handle above her head. "Drive much?"

"It is nearly noon," Dimitri said. "You should eat."

"You're not my-" Valya stopped herself before she said a sentence that was all too untrue. _Father_. She sighed. "Where are we going, anyways?"

A smile tugged at the corner of Dimitri's lips as the gleaming SUV turned into none other than a Cracker Barrel. Valya exited the car, her eyes glued to the towering sign.

Her eyebrows knitted together. "Is it spaghetti western-themed?"

Dimitri looked at her in surprise. "You've seen spaghetti westerns?"

"Yeah." Valya shrugged. "We're kind of starved for entertainment, but there's a decent movie collection in the rec room. My favourite is _Death Rides a Horse._ "

She thought of the dusty VHS tape that sat in the lower level of Corinth: a bad movie amongst bad movies. The story spoke to her on a level she couldn't quite understand: a young gunslinger forging his way through a swath of villains to avenge his family, a weathered cowboy fresh out of prison looking to get back at those who put him there. It was the typical mentor-mentee story told time and time again, but the uneasily brokered truce and strong bond they made reminded her of a few in her own life.

"Huh," Dimitri said, locking the car. "Most people say _The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly_."

"I think that one's a little overrated." Valya looked at the immaculate front porch of the Cracker Barrel, her eyes drinking in all of the foreign details.

Dimitri nodded. " _Death Rides a Horse_ is one of my favourites as well."

Valya grunted noncommittally. "I like when his head gets blown off. Let's eat."

Dimitri sighed, following her through the double doors.

Country music and the smell of pancakes hit Valya like a sucker punch. The entire front room of the restaurant was decked out with old-timey candy, toys, and collectibles. It was like stepping into another world for her, one covered in pastels and comfort foods from a bygone era. They were seated quickly and Dimitri set about teaching Valya how to play the variety of table games that were set out to occupy the patrons.

"So I'm guessing you like westerns?" Valya asked after her fourth time of losing at triangle pegs.

Dimitri chuckled. "They're what I'm known for. When I was teaching at St Vladimir's I always had a western book on hand, mostly in Russian. Your-" His voice caught in his throat. "-your mother found them to be idiotic. She didn't understand how a guardian could be so obsessed with cowboys."

"Did she ever call you 'cowboy?'" Valya grinned. "I feel like that would be a fitting nickname."

He looked off into the distance, his eyes clouding over. "No. She called me 'comrade.'"

"Can I call you 'comrade?'" she asked, absentmindedly stuffing the pegs back into the holes.

"No." Dimitri's tone went dark.

"Then I could call you Dimka or Mitya..." Her voice trailed off as she thought. "Dimoshka?"

He shook his head. "That's not a true nickname for Dimitri."

"It is for every other Russian name," Valya said indignantly. "I did not study the language for years to be upstaged by an old man in a leather duster."

"If you'd studied Russian correctly, you'd know not to call me by my first name, Valya," he said, his face stony.

"Whatever, cowboy." Valya grumbled.

Their food arrived and they said in silence, making sure each other knew how much time and effort they were putting into ignoring one another. Eventually, Valya relented and began eating her fried chicken.

"What does the mark on your bag mean?" Dimitri asked conversationally. Valya could tell he was trying to dig for information as casually as possible.

She shrugged. "It was there when I bought it."

"That's a military-issue backpack, Valentina," he said. "It's not one you can buy in a store."

"Maybe you should tell me what it means, since you seem to know everything about me now," she retorted. A bright, hot flash of anger expanded in her chest and she did her best to quiet it down. She wasn't used to having to swallow her words as often as she did in the past 48 hours around Dimitri. She picked at her food. "Mom bought me the backpack."

Dimitri raised an eyebrow. "Really?"

"Really." She flicked her hand out to the side.

"Then why do you have a tattoo of it as well?" He poised the question like a trump card.

She froze, her eyes turning steely. "I have a lot of tattoos. You'll have to be more specific."

"The one on your ribs." Dimitri lifted his arms and gestured to where he meant.

Valya recoiled, her fork clattering to the ground. "Oh my god, did you watch me get undressed?"

He set his mouth in a hard line. "You are not nearly as well-trained as you think you are."

"Thanks for reminding me," she grumbled. "I don't get enough of that at home. 'This is the great Stasla's kid? What a runt.'" She mimicked Pollock's voice sarcastically.

Dimitri grew quiet. "She went by a Russian name?"

"Yeah..." Valya's voice trailed off. She observed him for a moment. "Anastasia. She said there were too many memories in a name. It meant.."

"Ressurection," they said in unison.

Dimitri and Valya locked gazes and for a glimmering second, they saw eye to eye, united by whatever was left in the world of Rose's memory. To them both, she was simply a ghost now, floating freely between worlds. Valya wished that she knew some sort of spell to bring her back, but magic wasn't exactly plentiful these days.

She coughed and averted her eyes, finally picking her fork up off the ground.

"Valya," Dimitri said with a soft urgency that surprised her. He put his hand on hers. "We will find who killed her. I promise you that."

Valya nodded stiffly. "Come on, cowboy. Let's hit the road."

* * *

 It wasn't until several days full of bickering, fast food, and restless nights in cheap motels had passed that they reached Vancouver. When they got within half an hour of the city, Valya began directing him off the highway and onto smaller backroads.

She struggled to remember how to get to Corinth by car, but a few missions in Vancouver and Seattle helped to jog her memory. They stopped at a gas station devoid of other patrons for a second while she attempted to read the map he had stuffed in the glove compartment of the Court-issued car.

"Are you sure you don't need any help?" Dimitri asked, looking over her shoulder at the map.

"No, I'm fine," Valya snapped. "I've just never approached it from this way before. Give me a second."

He backed off, choosing instead to lounge up against the hood of the car and stare off into the distance. After a few moments, he pulled a battered novel out of his coat pocket and began to read. The sounds of nature echoed all around them and even though Valya could hear cars in the distance, she still felt uneasy about being stuck in the wilderness. The sun was beginning to set across the tops of the trees.

Suddenly, she heard a crash from inside the gas station and whipped her head around. The map fluttered in the breeze. While the rest stop they were at was small, the store connected to it was even smaller. Valya doubted that more than five people could fit in there including the cashier. The lights flickered, but she couldn't see anyone inside. Then, the store went dark completely.

Dimitri grabbed Valya's elbow and she jumped. "Valentina, we need to leave."

"No." She shook her head, clamouring for her bag in the back seat of the car. From there, she pulled out a gleaming silver stake and a gun. "Something is going on."

"And it would be in our best interest to continue driving," he said with more force.

Valya wrenched her arm out of his grip. "No way. When there's Strigoi in the area, we have to kill them. I don't know what Guardians are taught, but that's how it is where I come from. Innocents aren't allowed to die because we want to feel safer."

"You can't charge in there without a plan," he protested.

She flicked the safety off on the gun and grinned. "Then I'll make one up."

She felt invincible charging into the store, weapons at the ready, and it didn't take too long to dispatch the Strigoi that was snacking on the pale string-bean of a checkout boy. Blood splattered the walls as she staked the vampire with so much force that they both barreled into the rotating kiosk selling maple leaf-embossed key chains and bottle openers.

Minutes later, she emerged from the store, her jacket significantly redder than it was before and a bag of beef jerky in one hand.

"Just in case you get snacky," she said, throwing the bag to Dimitri. He caught it with a look of mild disgust.

"You are definitely your mother's daughter," he said in a low tone. He chucked the beef jerky into the back seat.

Valya picked up the map again, the blood on her fingers staining the edges of the paper. "Now, where were we again?"


	10. Secrets

They parked in the shadows under a copse of pine trees, after an hour long journey through the backwoods of British Columbia. Valya had motioned for Dimitri to stop once the trees had become so thick that the sounds of the forest surrounded them and they could barely see the sky through the leaves.

"What now?" he asked.

"Now," Valya said, slinging her backpack over her shoulder, "We walk."

It was a more arduous walk than Dimitri had anticipated. The terrain was rocky and dark, with unexpected twists and turns that even he couldn't see in the dense forest. But Valya seemed to know the way, and he was relieved that she was allowing him to follow instead of hogtying him to the roof of the car as she returned to whatever clandestine outpost she lived at. He had no doubt her knot tying skills were survivalist-level.

"Is it far?" he asked after half an hour of hiking.

"You should have asked that in the beginning," she said. "For all you know, I could be leading you out here to kill you."

"If you wanted to kill me, you would have done that a long time ago," he replied. "Your mother wouldn't have raised a fool."

"That's the best thing in life a girl can be; a damn fool," Valya said, glancing out into the distance.

"What?" Dimitri swatted away a mosquito.

"The Great Gatsby," she answered. "You know, for an avid reader, you don't seem to know much in the way of literature."

He scoffed, surprising himself. Dimitri didn't often lose control over his demeanor and appearance, but it seemed to happen most often around Rose Hathaway. Or descendants of hers.

Suddenly, Valya stopped cold.

"Stay here," she advised. "The snipers will kill you if you go any further."

Dimitri looked to the trees. There was no evidence of snipers or even any human intervention to begin with. He put his hand on her shoulder to hold her back. "I'm coming with you."

She snorted. "Like hell you are."

"You wouldn't have led me this far if you were going to make me wait outside," he replied. "This is not a negotiation, Valentina."

She stared at him for a moment, her eyes filled with defiance and conflict. Then she tore her shoulder from his grasp and said, her sarcasm biting, "Whatever floats your boat, cowboy. Die by sniper fire, see if I care."

They exited the tree line.

As Dimitri had predicted, there weren't any snipers beyond the forest, but a squat building made from concrete and painted to blend in with the surrounding terrain. He glimpsed the dome of a greenhouse a ways off and a gravel road disguised as a field of wildflowers. Valya stormed up to the building and found a panel similar to a keypad, but before she could enter any sort of code, a voice came from the speakers.

" _Halt. You do not belong here_ ," came the voice. Dimitri could sense a tinge of compulsion even through the speakers. " _Return to your home immediately_."

"Relax, it's just me," Valya said into the speaker with her finger pressed on the ancient, weathered button beside it.

A crackly voice different from the recording they had just heard answered. " _Fuck, Valya. You're in a huge amount of trouble_."

He could see her roll her eyes, then she glanced his was, clearly contemplating something. Dimitri chose to find a spot to stare at on the wall. She bit her lip and pressed the button again.

"Yeah, I figured." Valya sighed and shifted her weight. "Let me in anyway? I promise I'll go to Josiah as soon as-"

" _You might want to scratch those plans_ , _Valgal_ ," said the voice. " _Pollock was on security detail, saw you coming up through the back trail, and woke Josiah up. He's_ _pissed_."

"You call me Valgal one more time and you will catch these hands, Arden, I am not even fucking with you." Valya sighed. She lowered her voice and said through gritted teeth, "Just open the goddamn door."

" _Your funeral, Valya_."

A beep sounded from behind the wall of concrete and something shifted within the mechanisms that operated the front gate. How had it never popped up on Court's radar before? He fiddled with the edge of his sleeve.

"I know you're judging me, Belikov," Valya said, looking at him out of the corner of her eye.

Dimitri paused for a moment before speaking. "I'm not."

"You've got those judgy eyes on," she said.

He snorted. "No judgy eyes."

Valya clenched her fists, then let them go slowly. "Whatever. Just-"

He tilted his head to the side, trying to get a read on her expression but failing.

"Just stay behind me," she said with an odd, protective tone to her voice.

The doors opened completely, wide enough to fit an entire car between them,, revealing the uncertainty of a dark hallway. He could feel the cool air flowing from deep within all the way out, leading him to believe that a majority of it was underground. The more he gleaned from Valya about where she lived, the more he became confused- and even impressed. Court was the center of Moroi civilization. As far as he knew, there wasn't anything more solid than it.

But the past couple of days had taught him that there was a lot that he didn't know.

Valya took off down the hallway at a brisk pace, leaving Dimitri in the dust.

"I told you to stay behind me," she said, scowling.

A buzzer went off and the door behind them closed. The hallway was illuminated only by the faintest of lights. Dimitri couldn't see the far end.

After a few minutes of walking, a man a few years younger than Valya popped his head out of a door along the hallway, presumably the guard room. He was wearing a grey and blue uniform with an empty gun holster strapped to his leg and a name tape reading 'Arden.'

"Hey Stasla, you are _not_ going to like who is waiting up on level four for you," he said. Arden crossed his arms over his chest and leaned against the doorjamb. "Josiah almost burst my eardrum on the comms."

"I don't give a flying fuck, desk jockey." Valya flipped the bird in Arden's face as she passed by. She continued without stopping, Dimitri in tow, until the end of the hallway.

"Nice to see you too!" Arden shouted after her. "And who's that guy you brought with you?"

Dimitri smiled lightly and turned to look at the guard over his shoulder. He gave Arden an almighty snarl.

"Don't do that," Valya said in a warning tone. They wound around a corner into a better-lit section of the building.

"I'm not sure I know what you're talking about."

Dimitri felt an ominous tug in his gut as they continued on, the floor gently sloping downwards. His eyes adjusted to the darkness, but what he saw didn't bring him any answers. The lights were simple fluorescents, the walls concrete, and the occasional mark of three straight, white lines appeared at eye level. The same logo that was on Valya's backpack.

"Liking what you see?" Valya asked casually.

Dimitri shrugged. "I'm not seeing much of anything."

"Just you wait," she replied. He could hear secrets in her voice.

They took a sharp turn and the corridor narrowed before spilling out onto a terrace with iron railings as thick as his wrists. The compound opened up into a warehouse-like room filled with shipping containers of various shapes and colors, stacked on top of each other in what should have been precarious positions, but something told Dimitri that the builders had had stability in mind. There were lengths and lengths of string-lights propped up by the roofs of the shipping containers to form makeshift lanes and alleyways, peppered with the occasional lantern and paper decoration. A large clearing in the far corner of the space held a boxing ring where people were sparring.

There were people everywhere: in the roads, in the shipping container houses, on the tops of the roofs. A mixture of dhampir, human, and Moroi lived in the compound, with uniforms similar to Arden's dotted here and there.

Valya led him down towards a spiral staircase that connected to the makeshift streets. There was more noise down amongst the houses, voices and laughter and music.

"Is this a cult?" Dimitri asked. He glanced at his surroundings with suspicion.

"Lighten up a little, will you?" Valya asked. She weaved through the houses with expertise towards an unknown destination. "Just because it's not Court, doesn't mean it's suspect."

"So it is a cult." Dimitri cracked a smile.

She scowled. "It-"

"Valya!" someone called from the other side of the space between the box cars. "Did you send your reports from the Ural mission yet?"

"If you couldn't tell, I'm a little busy right now!" she shot back.

"I'm not the one asking here!" The person in question was standing in the doorway of a dark orange house with a few other residents, beers in hand. "Josiah is up my ass about getting them to the archives and he told me _you_ were on report duty."

Valya spun on her heel, her hair whipping into Dimitri's face. "I said, I'm a little busy right now. Josiah can suck my left toe if he wants the reports so fast."

"Valya," Dimitri put his hand on Valya's shoulder, but she didn't respond. " _Valentina_."

Valya jerked her shoulder out of Dimitri's grip and turned to look at him. He glared at her, his face made of stone.

"Perhaps you should talk to Josiah," he said in an even tone. Whatever his daughter had gotten herself mixed up in, he wanted it resolved as soon as possible. The sooner he could get to the bottom of this and bring Valya back to Court, the better.

She faltered for a moment, attempting to decode his expression, then nodded. She backed away from the orange container house.

"I'll see you at mess later," she muttered. Valya edged past Dimitri towards a different street. When they emerged, Dimitri grabbed her elbow, bringing them both to a standstill between boxes.

"You need to start telling me what's going on or I can't help you," he said.

"It's classified," Valya retorted. She drew herself up to give an illusion of strength. "You don't have clearance yet. You actually don't have any clearance at all; you're a Court guardian. You shouldn't be here."

"I have to be here." Dimitri glanced around and lowered his voice. "You're my daughter-"

Valya took a step back from Dimitri and looked at him with an incredulous expression on her face. "You choose right now to become a father figure? It's a little too late, buddy."

Dimitri flinched. "I want to figure out what killed Rose as much as you do. We have to work together."

"No, you don't get to call her that." Valya pushed her finger into his chest. "You call her Stasla, or nothing at all. You were gone all these years; you don't get the right to call her by her first name."

Dimitri stood, stunned. Rose's new name didn't sit well in his stomach and everything, from the way the compound was laid out to how Valya spoke of her set off red flags. He had been too reckless with this mission. He was always reckless when it came to Rose.

_Rose._

How he missed her.

"Valechka!"

A shout came from someone nearly halfway across the warehouse in the walkway they were currently on. A man lifted up his arms and waved to Valya. He was Moroi, with tan skin the same rare colour of Abe Mazur's and long, dark hair pulled up into a bun. A few pieces had found their way out of his hair tie and brushed along the edge of his jaw. He was handsome in a way a statue might be: sculpted and sharp.

"Sasha!" Valya shouted. She ran towards him at full speed.

It was like a light was turned on in her when she saw Sasha. Dimitri saw, for the smallest of moments, a glimmer of his wife. Valya seemed so... _free_. He'd almost forgotten what that looked like.

"You have three seconds to explain where you went or-"

Sasha was interrupted when Valya launched herself into his arms with a bright grin on her face. She buried her head into the crook of his neck and wrapped her legs around his waist, sending them both spinning.

Valya whispered something in his ear. She gripped him fiercely.

"You were only in Russia for a month." He ran his fingers through her hair. Sasha pulled away from Valya's embrace for long enough to look at her. "What have you been up to since taking the wrong plane in New York, Valechka? Josiah is all up in arms about it."

"Reenacting the second Home Alone movie," Valya said. She hopped down from her perch and strung a lazy arm over his shoulders.

"You should have enough taste to know that's not the one worth reenacting," he replied. Sasha turned his gaze to Dimitri, who had walked up to them slowly. "Is he the reason why I was up late tracking plane data from Newark with Hershey?"

Valya cocked her head to the side. "Did they reinstate your clearance? I thought you had cleaning duty from now until the end of time."

"I snuck in after hours," Sasha said. "Hersh is a good friend; she was really worried about you."

"Yeah, whatever." She shrugged, sullen.

Dimitri cleared his throat and looked at Valya with a raised eyebrow. "Are you going to introduce us, Valentina?"

Sasha eyed Dimitri warily, but looked to Valya for an answer. He seemed to defer most decisions to her, leading Dimitri to guess that Valya was a higher rank.

"Belikov, this is Aleksandr Amin. My- we work together." Valya bit her lip. "Sasha, this is Dimitri Belikov, my... father."

She seemed to get the word out with some difficulty. Despite this, something fluttered in Dimitri's heart when he heard it.

Sasha let out a low whistle. "...fuck."

"Excuse me?" Dimitri said in a warning tone.

Valya made a swift cut-off motion with her hand at Sasha. He grabbed her arm and pulled her in close, whispering something in her ear that Dimitri couldn't quite catch.

There was something about Sasha that struck Dimitri as curious, but he couldn't quite put his finger on it. The way he and Valya moved around each other gave off the idea that they were involved romantically, but everything else, from the way they spoke to each other to their actions, told a different story. Valya and Sasha had known each other a long time.

"We have to go," Valya said. She grabbed Dimitri by the wrist and pulled him back towards the stairs. "Josiah will be up on level four waiting for me, and all visitors have to go through him."

"I think it's a little too late for that," Sasha said. He pointed to the terrace one level up that jutted out of the wall near the stairs.

A dhampir near Dimitri's age paced near the balcony railing. He had hair that hung near his collarbone and curled ever so slightly at the edges, but was graying at the temples, and wore a button down shirt and weathered brown trousers that seemed more fit for an excursion with Indiana Jones than a military compound. A gold hoop glittered in one ear.

 _Josiah_ , Dimitri thought.

Valya stopped in her tracks and blanched when Josiah spotted her. He pointed with a strong finger covered in golden rings.

" _Valentina Belikova_ ," Josiah bellowed. It reverberated around the warehouse with a deafening boom. Everything clashed to a halt.

"Shit," Valya said. She gripped Dimitri's wrist without realizing it, then let it go. "Sorry."

Josiah dashed down the stairs connecting the balcony to the main floor and strode towards Valya, who still stood tense and frozen. Valya was visibly attempting to relax her posture as he closed the final few yards between them.

Up close, Josiah wasn't what Dimitri had expected. He'd thought the leader of Corinth would look hardened and large, like a warrior of sorts. Instead, Josiah's face appeared noble and beautiful, albeit pushing 60 years of age. It was as if the cherubs in Renaissance paintings had been allowed to grow older. His face as well as his hands (and, Dimitri assumed, the rest of his body) was covered in small scars.

"You are in an incredible amount of trouble, young lady!" Josiah roared at Valya.

"Hey Pops," Valya said with a weak, quivering attempt at friendliness. "How's it been?"

"Don't 'how's it been' me, Valentina!" Josiah gestured wildly. "You disobeyed direct orders, used Corinth funds to buy not only a plane ticket but a new pair of Beats headphones-"

"All the cool kids have them." Valya shrugged.

"-and sent the entire compound into a state of lockdown," Josiah finished. "If I found out you did anything else in direct violation of our laws, you will be demoted so low, _the trainees will laugh at you_."

"'Good to see you too, Valya. Glad you didn't die, Valya,'" she mocked. "Can't I get a hug from dear old dad?"

"You're grounded," Josiah said flatly.

"You can't ground me!" Valya was astounded. "Where the hell am I going to go? I don't have another mission scheduled for a month."

"You're off that mission, and every other mission until the end of time. You're lucky I don't confine you to your unit until you're thirty," Josiah retorted.

"I'm twenty-three, Pops," she pointed out. "That wouldn't take too long."

His face softened and he pulled her in for a bone-crushing hug. "I am so relieved that you're safe."

"Ha, ha," Valya poked him in the side. "You're getting soft in your old age."

Dimitri crossed his arms over his chest, unimpressed with what was unfolding. If Valya had called Josiah her father, what did that make him? Josiah was a dhampir as well, so it was just as impossible for Rose to have a child with him, but Valya existed. Was it possibly that she had other siblings running around too?

"Hey," Sasha said, sidling up to Dimitri as Josiah and Valya had their reunion. He held his hand out. "Aleksandr Amin, agriculture. Pleased to meet you."

Dimitri glanced up at Sasha and slowly, skeptically, took his hand, returning the gesture. "Dimitri Belikov." He paused. "Head Guardian."

"So you're... her dad." Sasha said, his eyes wide. "Cool. Rad. That's... yeah."

Dimitri stared at Sasha. "Yes. It is quite... _yeah_ , as you put it."

"I know Valya's been wondering for a while where you were, but she could never squeeze it out of Stasla. Even had me try a few times, but family dinners are never my kind of thing, so..." Sasha's voice trailed off. He crossed his arms over his chest.

"I'm sorry, what is the nature of your relationship with my daughter?" Dimitri demanded, quickly losing his patience with Sasha's answers, or lack thereof.

"Boyfriend," Sasha replied. "Of five years."

Dimitri clenched his jaw. He tried not to think about how he and Rose were barely together that long themselves. Thankfully, Josiah interrupted the conversation, saving Dimitri from saying any of the thoughts he had swirling about his head out loud.

"Thank you for bringing Valya back to us," Josiah said, shaking Dimitri's hand. "I'm Josiah Hollis, the current leader of Corinth. Welcome to our home."

"Dimitri Belikov," Dimitri said, his words coming out with more of an edge than he had originally intended. "Head guardian of Court and Valentina's father."

The muscles in Josiah's neck clenched ever so slightly, a movement that was almost imperceptible to the human eye. He dropped Dimitri's hand and stood, his hands clasped behind his back.

"We have a lot to discuss."


	11. Shifting

" _Nine weeks_?" Valya exclaimed. She slammed her hands on the table. "Nine fucking weeks of cleanup duty? Not even remedial trainees work there that long!"

"You watch your language, Valentina," Josiah said. His voice had an underlying growl to it. "You raise your voice to me again and I will  _double_  your punishment. You will be shoveling waste until the cows come home."

"That analogy doesn't make any sense!" She shouted. Her hair flew everywhere. "We don't even  _have_  cows!"

Dimitri cleared his throat. "If I may..."

They both simmered down enough for him to continue speaking. Josiah pulled out a chair. Valya remained standing.

"I came to return Valentina to your headquarters," Dimitri began. He clenched his jaw for a moment, prepared to rattle off the official speech he'd been forming ever since they'd hit Ohio. "And after a period of a few days, I would like to take her back to Court. She is the only surviving daughter of the Hathaway line and now that the Council knows of her existence, they will want to have her in training."

Valya burst out laughing. "This guy. Can you believe him?"

"Valya is not going anywhere," Josiah said. His hands clenched into fists. "She is not just the daughter of our former leader, but a good fighter in her own respect. We need a skilled combat force for missions."

"She's also right here, but go ahead and discuss my future as if I don't exist." Valya relented and plopped herself down in a chair. "I'll wait."

Dimitri inclined his head towards Valya. "You were going to put one of your  _skilled_  fighters in a demeaning position for nine weeks instead of deploying her? That doesn't sound very wise."

"How I choose to discipline my forces is not your decision," Josiah shot back. "She broke the rules, she must be punished. We appreciate your presence, Guardian Belikov, but how this happens does not concern you."

Valya began inspecting her nails, despite there being no polish on them.

"I am her father, of course it concerns me." Dimitri cursed himself for letting emotion seep into his voice.

"Biology has nothing to do with family when it comes to Corinth," Josiah replied. "Blood does not equate ownership."

Dimitri set his mouth into a hard line. The deeper he went into the depths of Corinth, the more daunting his mission seemed.

"Valentina has never seen Court before; she doesn't know any of her relatives or her grandparents, who are very much alive," Dimitri said. "She deserves to meet her family. Isolation is not a good idea."

"If you two are going to continue to ignore me, can I go?" Valya asked, her lips parted in a sneer. "'Cause I've got a man to see and a bed to crash on."

Josiah narrowed his eyes at her. "No interactions with Aleksandr until you can prove that you are committed to your unit and the cause. Loyalty, Valya. It is all that we have in this life."

Her nostrils flared. "I had something better and she died halfway around the world. Consider this, Pops: I'm a kid who had to light her mother's funeral pyre. Maybe I'm a little messed up after that, maybe I made a few mistakes, but I  _did_  something! You would have wanted to keep quiet about it all until it tore us apart."

"We are having a memorial for your mother later this evening," Josiah said, his tone low. "I will expect you to be there."

"Telling stories about her around a campfire won't bring her back, Hollis," Valya shot at him. "You of all people should know that."

"No," Dimitri said in a low voice. "But it helps."

Valya stood from her chair and was perfectly still for a moment, then turned to look at him. Her eyes shone with tears. "Fine, I'll be there. But I'm not telling some insipid stories from my childhood. You can fill in the fucking blanks with whatever you like, Pops."

"Valya," Josiah growled. " _Language_."

"I'm out." Valya made a rude gesture as she left the room. The door slammed shut behind her.

Josiah sighed. "Kids are such a handful."

Dimitri leveled a perfectly calm glare at Josiah, feeling his eye twitch ever so slightly. "I wouldn't know."

* * *

 

"You owe me one," Hershey said as soon as Valya entered the combat rec room.

She didn't have the stomach to go back to her unit and Sasha wouldn't be in his. After wandering the narrow hallways outside of the conference room on Level Four, her feet took her in the direction of the rec room, hoping to collapse on the couch for a few hours before she had to reemerge for dinner. Unfortunately, it was less than empty when she arrived.

"You know, I think those are the most forward words you've said to me, Hersh," Valya squinted up at her from where she was buried underneath a mound of couch cushions.

"Well you do," she said, tugging at the ends of her hair. "I covered for you in the airport when you abandoned us. Pollock went ballistic."

"Impressive, considering he doesn't have any balls to begin with," Valya mumbled.

"Don't crack jokes about this." Hershey sat down on the edge of the sofa. "We were really worried."

Valya put a pillow over her face to drown out the din of the others playing games and watching movies. Her voice came out muffled, "Sure. Fine."

Hershey sighed, a small, imperceptible sigh, and laid back over Valya's legs. "So..." She paused for a moment. "What was Court like?"

Valya pulled the pillow off of her face and tucked it underneath her chin. "Pretty." She could barely stop herself from smiling. "The houses there are so big- the entire trainee group could fit into one of them."

"They let you see inside the houses?" Hershey said, wide-eyed.

"Yeah," Valya shrugged. "I stayed with my aunt and uncle. They've got a super cute kid named Sage and four bedrooms in their house."

" _Four_?" Hershey could barely contain her excitement. "Tell me more."

"Yes, Valya, tell us more," said Pollock from the doorway. "About how you compromised an entire mission to bring back Daddy Dearest."

"Oh screw you, Pollock." Valya put the cushion back over her face. "I don't want to talk to you."

"Great," Pollock scoffed. "More avoidance from the princess. Maybe one day she'll actually have to own up to her mistakes."

"For the record, I didn't go to Pennsylvania to find my father, I went to get support in the murder of my mother and  _your_  leader," Valya shot back. "Just in case you forgot about that happening."

Pollock was about to speak when a hand stopped him and in came Dimitri Belikov, towering by at least a head over Pollock's already tall frame. Pollock went to glare at him before realizing who he was and stepped backwards into the door.

The room fell completely silent and dozens of eyes turned to watch Dimitri stride across the room. He still hadn't changed out of his Guardian uniform and the distinguished pins on his lapel were clearly visible

"Valentina," he said, glancing down at Valya's prone form on the couch.

Valya slowly sat up, her hair in disarray. "Yes?"

"Josiah has told me that you are to help set up for the ceremony tonight," Dimitri said. "He mentioned something about you 'needing to practice for the mundane task you'll be doing for the rest of your life?'"

Valya groaned. "I'm not going."

"Not an option," Dimitri replied. In a single move, he picked her up from the couch and set her on the ground. "Go. You've already made enough of a mess."

* * *

 

Valya entered the main clearing of Corinth, a spot west of the precariously stacked boxcar houses, with Dimitri in tow. There was already a small crowd that had formed to help set up for the memorial that evening and a chorus of whoops and yells came from the assembled group when she reached the outskirts.

"Yeah, yeah," she said, gesturing for them to settle down. Briefly, she contemplated making a quip, but swallowed her words when she saw Josiah's expression on the opposite side of the crowd.

The people that glanced in Dimitri's direction looked away swiftly, his stature imposing even amongst the athletic Corinthians. He stood behind her, his hands clasped, observing his surrounding with a keen eye.

"Glad you're joining us, Valentina," Josiah said with a pointed look.

She smiled tightly. "Glad to be here, sir."

The slight twitch of her eyebrow and tensing of her facial features did not go unnoticed by those around her.

Valya let the tension in her shoulder ease slightly, but she could still feel the stares.

"We need a full fleet of chairs. Everyone will be joining us this evening, no matter what duty they are on," Josiah said, continuing his speech to the volunteers. "Team A is on chairs, Team B is on food and drink, Team C is on decorations."

Josiah rattled off a list of team members, but Valya didn't hear her name at all. She began to zone out, the words become useless background chatter until Dimitri put a hand on her shoulder.

"Don't touch me," she muttered. She shook his hand off.

"I must make a call," he replied.

"Good luck," Valya said. "You won't get any reception in here."

Dimitri raised an eyebrow.

Valya sighed. "Fine. Follow me."

She glanced surreptitiously around her until she locked eyes with Josiah, then led Dimitri out from the main room of the warehouse and back up the staircase to Level Four. Behind the massive screens and the conference table lay a single landline.

She was sure that it was untraceable, but she'd never attempted to make a call on it. No one in Corinth was allowed to have a cell phone, even in the field. They all stayed close enough to each other that only radios were necessary. Occasionally, she'd see someone contact main command through the laptops that they were allowed in the field, but the network they were on was closed and couldn't access anything in the outside world.

"You can make a call here," she said. "It's- I don't know if it still works. But don't try to sell secrets to Court; Josiah would banish me for life."

"I-" Dimitri hesitated. He placed a hand on Valya's. "Thank you, Valentina."

The gesture was so soft that she barely felt it. She shifted her stance, something within her feeling unbalanced.

She gulped and sat down at a chair while he dialed. In truth, she didn't have to keep such a watchful eye on her father, but it made her feel like she was acting on behalf of Corinth. There was something about Dimitri that made her feel as if she had to pick sides. She owed Corinth her life, that was true. It had helped her and her mother when there was nowhere to turn. What did they owe Court?

"Hey," Dimitri said into the old rotary dial phone. "It's me."

The speaker on the other side of the conversation made an exclamation that Valya couldn't quite make out. The Dimitri in front of her seemed transformed; softer, quieter, not as imposing. Whoever he was talking to was important to him: maybe a different wife or another daughter. A rush of white hot anger flowed through her chest at the thought.

"No, no, calm down," Dimitri made a shhing noise. "I'm fine, I'm alright. I couldn't call earlier because I'm- well, I'm not sure where I am exactly. It's- Hey, don't get short with me. I'm doing my job."

He hesitated for a moment, then looked at Valya.

"She's fine," Dimitri said in a hushed tone. He ran a hand through his hair. "You'd like her. She's a lot like-" His voice drifted off. He looked at his watch for a second. "I need to go. I don't know when I'll be back, maybe in a couple of days." The person he was talking to said something and he broke out into the most brilliant smile Valya had ever seen. It nearly made her heart stop. "I love you too. Get some sleep, okay? I'll talk to you later."

He set the phone down and sat for a moment, his head in his hands. Valya pursed her lips.

"Did you remarry?" she asked after a stretch of silence.

"Yes," came Dimitri's voice. It felt thin.

Valya gulped, but the stone in her throat would not disappear. "What's her name?"

Dimitri seemed to deliberate something for a moment before saying, "His name is Jack."

"Oh." The word felt flat on her tongue. "A guy."

"Yeah," Dimitri said in what could have been mistaken for sarcasm. "A guy."

She fiddled with the edge of her t-shirt. "Is he nice?" she asked lamely.

Dimitri chuckled. "Yeah," he said with that same, brilliant smile of his. "He's really nice."

"What-" She took in a deep breath. "What does he do?"

"He's a baker," Dimitri replied. He stood, placing the phone back where it belonged, then gestured for Valya to follow him. "Come, we should return to help set up for the memorial."

"I-" She paused, laughing louder than she had in days. "I just realized something."

They turned to exit Level Four.

"What is that?" Dimitri asked. Their conversation came easily for once and he saw the smallest glimmer of the girl that Valya must have been before their paths crossed.

She erupted into a fit of giggles. "I have four gay dads."

* * *

 

The memorial was beautiful, Valya thought, but in a way that an oil painting was beautiful. It felt detached and impersonal, like something she imagined Court would dream up for her mother. Everyone seemed to be on edge during the ceremony and speeches. Because they didn't have a body, they chose to put her general pin in a box that they would bury in the cemetery later. Valya wished she could have given her mother a Viking funeral; Rose would have loved that.

Now they sat in a circle, the only thing fighting back the overwhelming darkness being a small bonfire. Valya leaned on Sasha's shoulders, her legs entangled with his. There weren't many others around the bonfire, just Josiah, Adam, Gin, and Dimitri. She thought she'd seen Pollock return to his unit directly after the ceremony, but she couldn't be sure.

"Mind if we join?" Jasper asked, Hershey in tow. He held up a bottle of vodka. "We brought booze."

"Yes!" Valya clamoured for the alcohol and downed a shot without prompting. She immediately made a face. "Ugh, did you brew this in a bathtub or something?"

"Family secret," Hershey grinned, then covered her mouth quickly. The twins sat down next to Sasha and Valya.

"I don't even want to know," Josiah grumbled as he took the bottle from Valya. He poured a drink for Adam as well. "Dimitri?"

"I-" Dimitri hesitated. He took the bottle after a moment's deliberation. "Alright. It's very appropriate to toast with vodka at a funeral."

"Even if there's no body?" Adam asked.

Dimitri grimaced. "Especially if there's no body."

There was a spark in Dimitri's eye as he looked down at his chipped cup. Valya wondered if he had to do this for more than just his wife in the years they'd been gone.

"You should tell a story, cowboy," Valya said, her throat feeling thick. "Something... happy."

Dimitri laughed. "Something happy? What do you mean?"

Valya bit her lip. "What was she like before?" The words were heavy on her tongue. "Before all... this?"

Everyone turned their heads to watch him and Dimitri chose instead to look at his shoes. He ran his fingers through his hair and it struck Valya how small and young he looked. She never thought that she would use those two words to describe him, but it felt to her that this was the true Dimitri. This was the Dimitri that her mother fell in love with.

"Rose was a troublemaker," Dimitri began. "The first time I met her, she was maybe sixteen, seventeen years old and was on the run from Court authorities. She had run away from school, taking her best friend and the next in line for the Moroi throne with her. They evaded us for two years. Two years, can you believe that?" He paused, smiling to himself. "She was dragged back to the academy kicking and screaming."

"She sounds like you, Valya," Sasha snickered.

Valya punched him lightly, motioning for him to be quiet.

"Rose Hathaway broke every rule," Dimitri continued. "She flaunted the system, but not without good reason. She dropped out of school, she dropped back in. She was arrested, accused, praised, lauded, ridiculed- She blew up the statue of a former queen during a jailbreak, broke a man who'd done many things to hurt her out of jail, and was accused of high treason in the space of a year." He pressed his lips together in a thin line.

"Rose Hathaway was, without a doubt, the most gifted Guardian the world has ever seen. She didn't just defy the odds, she set the bar that would judge others for decades. There's-" He laughed humorlessly. "There's even an award in her name. The Hathaway Prize, given to anyone who can break her score on the Guardian exam. It's only been given out once."

Dimitri sighed. He hadn't looked at anyone else during his entire speech, but Valya couldn't look away from his face. There was a whole chapter in her mother's life that she never had any access to. It was like seeing a completely different person.

"Thirty years ago, Rose was telling the same stories about me to my family. I am honored to have the opportunity to do the same." He raised his glass over his head and muttered something in Russian that Valya barely caught.

_To my love._

She did the same. The vodka burned her throat.

In the distance, Valya heard music being played. It was an old folk song that was often sung late at night to pass the time or on missions to ward off the darkness. The melody was well-worn, the words impressed into Valya's mind since she was young and has only the faintest idea of Russian words, her childish tongue struggled to form the slippery syllables.

" _Here, someone is coming down the hill,_ " Valya sang softly in Russian along with the faint guitar. She nestled her head in the crook of Sasha's neck. " _Perhaps it is my beloved returning_."

It felt odd to her to hear the words sung at a time of mourning. She locked eyes with Dimitri who was staring at her with a strange sort of smile that shifted in the light of the fire. He took the vodka bottle and emptied it into Valya's cup.

" _Spasibo_."

Shadows played across the rim of the glass, turning the vodka into an ever-changing ocean. Valya wrinkled her nose and downed it.

"Hey Zoya!" Sasha twisted in his seat. "Play something cheerful, why don't you?"

In the shadowy distance, Zoya lifted her middle finger into the air to flip Sasha off. The upbeat twang of a different song, something from the many CDs littering the rec room's floors. It warmed Valya from the inside, or perhaps that was the vodka; she couldn't tell. A tingling began in her fingers.

"Come." She stood, gesturing for Sasha to do the same. She took his hand and led him to the other group, where the guitar played.

They danced, and it felt like a weight that had settled on Valya's shoulders had lifted slightly. They twirled and jumped and shook out years worth of stress.

They danced, and it felt like a prayer.

_To Rose._

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Closure is a fickle thing, my friends, and whether Valya and Dimitri have found it is yet to be known, but where the story goes from here is a mystery. An attack bathed in shadows, shifting allegiances, and a dangerous journey beyond the walls of Corinth awaits.
> 
> What would you like to see next in Corinthians? Add it to your comment and you get the satisfaction of making a writer smile. Also a surprise. Probably. Who knows? Life is short and I'm busy eating taquitos.


	12. Merciless

When Dimitri awoke the next morning, a startling sense of unfamiliarity jolted him up into a sitting position. Then, as the light filtered through the hazy overhead fluorescents, he realized the concrete floor beneath him and the concrete walls beside him belonged to the strange three-pronged animal that called itself Corinth. He had been here for too long, that much was true. The Queen would be wanting an update, if not a full report, in the near future, but he wasn't quite sure how to complete what he'd come here to do.

The bonfire had burned down during the night to a small pile of ash, the floor surrounding it as black as night. Sleeping bodies lay scattered across the floor in the main Corinth clearing. He felt wrong in the place; a disturbance of incalculable enormity invading something sterile, pure. Corinth was more clever than Dimitri had given them credit for, and vastly more organized than he had previously believed.

Rogue communities weren't supposed to be powerful. They weren't supposed to be a threat.

Although, he reasoned for a moment, they could have Corinth as allies. While the mere mention of Court tended to make everyone tense, it didn't have to be that way.

Dimitri remembered a time when things were peaceful. It felt like so long ago.

Peace was not a word that Dimitri Belikov threw around lightly. After all, his job depended on conflict in order for him to do it efficiently. His hands were stained with blood and violence. If the war ever slowed or came to an end, as everyone hoped, he would become a writer. He'd decided this ages ago, but had never breathed the words aloud.

Writers, too, thrived on discontent.

"Oh, good. You're awake." Josiah Hollis said to his left. He was sitting on the ground, his long limbs twisted and folded into an approximation of comfort. Half-moon spectacles perched on the bridge of his nose as he shuffled through a set of documents.

"Good morning." Dimitri brushed dust off of his uniform.

"Is it?" Josiah kept his tone conversational in a way that made it painfully obvious that small talk was not his strong suit. "It happened again." He paused. "The attacks, I mean."

"When?" Dimitri's mind was still full of cobwebs. He brushed them to the side.

"While we were sleeping."  _Shuffle, shuffle._  "Two more dead, three miles outside of where Rose was found." Josiah grimaced. "They were humans."

"You know what you have to do, don't you?" Dimitri didn't move from where he was sitting, choosing instead to covertly glance at what Josiah was examining.

"That's a non-option, Belikov." Josiah's throat caught mid-laugh. "Never thought I'd get to say that last name again."

"Court is always an option, Hollis," Dimitri said. "We are not evil, contrary to the opinion of your followers."

Josiah sighed. "They don't think Court is evil. They're just... wary. Paranoia is the difference between life and death."

He looked like a man who hadn't been able to relax since the day he was born. It pained Dimitri in an odd way to know this was one of the people who raised his child.

"Then how will you deal with this threat?"

"Like all the others. Quickly and quietly."

They held each others' gazes for a split-second, then Josiah returned to his work and Dimitri to his thoughts.

"Were you here all night?" Dimitri asked, his own question catching his mind off-guard.

Josiah shrugged in a way that said yes in the same way that it said no. "I can't leave Adam while he's sleeping."

The curled form of Josiah's husband pushed up against his feet, the silver Alchemist tattoo barely visible in the half-light. Adam seemed twenty years younger when he slept, but it was a fitful type of sleep. His hands twitched and clawed at the air.

"Nightmares," Josiah said softly. As quickly as it had gone, his business-like attitude returned. "It's nearly morning. We should wake the others."

Dimitri looked at the surrounding sleepers, all huddled in some form of sleep. He recognized them briefly from the memorial, but could not place their faces in his mind or their names on his tongue. Valya was not amongst the group.

"Come," Josiah said to Dimitri. He had woken Adam and was gathering his papers. "We'll gather on Level Four."

"The original team?" Adam asked. He rubbed the sleep out of his eyes.

"As many of them as you can get," Josiah replied.

Dimitri stood and stretched. It had been years since he had slept on something other than his bed, and he wasn't twenty-six anymore. He followed Josiah up to Level Four and wondered with a distant sort of distraction if this was the beginning or just the beginning of the end.

* * *

 

It had been two hours since the Ural Mountains team assembled on Level Four to go over the new information that had been relayed to them in the night and Valentina Belikova still hadn't surfaced.

"I can't believe that Stasla Junior would miss a strategizing meeting on her own pet project." Pollock snickered into his coffee, earning him a punch in the shoulder from Gin.

"Does she often sleep late?" Dimitri asked.

This earned a round of surreptitious glances from various members of the team to each other. He didn't enjoy this language they shared, of whispered secrets and wordless conversations understood with such fluency that human speech was rarely necessary.

Dimitri offered an expression of his own. It said:  _well?_

"We know where she is, it's just..." Jasper trailed off.

"No one wants to get her," Gin finished.

They all shared knowing expressions that Dimitri was excluded from.

"You should go get her, Belikov," Pollock suggested. His fox-like face held a wicked grin. "The shock should be better than five espressos."

"Liam!" Gin hissed.

"If no one else is willing to retrieve Valentina, I will." Dimitri rose from his seat. "Would anyone care to tell me where I can find her?"

Josiah, the only one who had not yet spoken, sighed. "Unit 47. Go get the brat."

Dimitri knocked on the door to unit 47, a small one most likely for one person. It was in a section of Corinth that housed a majority of the young people who were either orphans or in training to become agents. Those who didn't wish to go through training remained in their family homes, which were larger and had several rooms.

He didn't hear any signs of movement behind the door and knocked again, but he had a sneaking suspicion that Valya was a deep sleeper just like Rose. He'd be lucky to get her up by knocking the door down.

"Valentina," Dimitri shouted through the door.

Still no answer. Dimitri was beginning to feel as if someone was playing a prank on him that only he didn't understand. He clenched his jaw and opened the door to the unit, letting light from outside stream in.

Valya was lying on the bed with an arm draped over Sasha's shirtless chest. They were fast asleep.

"Valentina," Dimitri said sternly. He gritted his teeth.

"Shit." Valya's head jerked upwards, her hair flying every which way. She saw Dimitri standing in the doorway. " _Shit_."

"You are late for the morning briefing," Dimitri said. He had nothing else to comment on, even though he wanted to. What his daughter does in her off time is none of his business, but that didn't mean he wasn't irked by it.

"Well, you could have knocked!" Valya said.

"I did."

Valya leaned over and swatted Sasha on the nose. "Wake up! We overslept."

Sasha blinked a few times and opened his eyes to see Dimitri darkening his doorstep. He gulped. "Oh shit."

Dimitri glowered at him.

"I'm coming to the briefing," Valya said. She picked up a t-shirt from the floor and pulled it on. "You can leave now. I'll be right there."

Dimitri stood silently, then turned and left the unit. "I'll be waiting outside."

Valya rolled her eyes and sighed.

* * *

 

The conference room on Level Four did its best to not go completely silent when Dimitri returned, a sullen-looking Valya in tow, but the expressions of the people he now realized were his colleagues did nothing but rile him up further. They knew that Valya spent every night in the bed of that Moroi earth user. That boy who did nothing but stare with his hooded grey eyes and run his fingers through the wild curtain of hair that hung about his shoulders.

 _Five years_. The words echoed around Dimitri's mind.

He took his seat beside Gin, keeping his face as composed as possible. Pollock sat across from him, a lazy grin spread across his face.

"How was Amin's unit, Staslanya?" he asked.

"You can't double a diminutive, Pollock," she spat back. "Your failure in remedial Russian is showing."

"You didn't answer my question."

"It doesn't warrant an answer, asshole."

"Enough." Josiah slapped his hands on the table, making everyone jump. "Nice of you to join us, Valentina. Can someone catch the cadet up on what she missed while she was sleeping?"

Hershey was quick to claim the role and dragged Valya off to a corner of the room, their heads pressed together and their voices low.

"Don't be so angry at Valya." Gin leaned over to speak to Dimitri. She smelled of black tea and hardtack. "It's no wonder she doesn't want to sleep in her actual unit. Too many reminders."

Dimitri stared straight ahead at a patch of discolored plaster in the wall. "I don't know what the ruled of Corinth are, but I am assuming she broke quite a few of them last night."

Gin shrugged. "Maybe so, but we all did. Drinking on a non-designated day, sleeping outside of our units, indoor fires larger than regulation, the list could go on and on."

He turned his head to look at Gin with a curious expression. She was tall, almost as tall as he was, with slender limbs and dark skin similar to Sasha's. She was Moroi, but he couldn't remember if she'd mentioned what element she'd settled as. Her green eyes glittered in the sparse light. "What do you know of Aleksandr Amin?"

"Sasha?" she pursed her lips. "He's a good kid. Bad past, some dark marks here and there, but Stasla liked him. I figure, that must count for something, right?"

Dimitri bit his lip to stop himself from chuckling. "She wasn't always the best judge of character."

Gin smiled. "Like mother like daughter. Besides, I heard you and Stasla got up to some pretty unsanctioned events back in your day."

Dimitri went beet red against his wishes. Pollock snickered from across the table and leaned over to high-five Gin.

* * *

 

Two more. Two more had been killed and Rokin was in a state of lockdown. It wasn't as if Ekaterina wanted to leave, but she had to. She had to keep Emiliya safe at all costs.

The twisting, narrow streets that led them into down were bumpy and unmaintained. Most of the town had left after the recent attacks. They had all happened so close to each other- too close. Whatever was living in the hills had grown stronger, brasher; metastasized like a cancer, split itself in two and grown larger than ever before.

" _Mother_ ," Emiliya whined from the passenger seat of the truck. Their belongings were piled into the truck bed; everything they could bear to part with was left to rot in the dusty home back in the woods.

"Emiliya," Ekaterina returned in a similar tone. "Don't be like this."

"We can't leave," Emiliya said. It sounded so unlike her; the petulance in her voice was gone and replaced by something smooth and calm. It terrified Ekaterina to no end.

_We can't leave. We can't leave. We can't leave._

She'd been muttering these words like a prayer ever since Ekaterina decided to start packing. They seemed to be tattooed in her flesh, carved into her skull, slipped onto her tongue by an unseen force.

_We can't leave._

"We must," Ekaterina replied. She kept a firm grip on the steering wheel as they neared the outskirts of the village.

Emiliya was becoming more agitated by the minute. Her hair, as light as cornsilk, swirled around her like a current as she twisted in her seat, attempting to find purchase on anything. Ekaterina flung a hand out and pinned her in place. They were almost out of the village now, it was only a matter of ensuring Emiliya went with her.

Then came the screaming. It was almost too much for Ekaterina to bear, but she held fast, the truck rounding the sharp corners and the steep hills of the mountain slopes as Emiliya wailed in the seat beside her. Her nails dug into the flesh of Ekaterina's forearm with surprising intensity and drew blood upon first contact.

"We can't leave!" Emiliya wailed. Her eyes were wild and unfocused. She banged on the windows, clawed at the dashboard. Her seat belt and Ekaterina's arm choked her back into submission.

_We can't leave._

And then, as they left the mountain upon which Rokin was perched, Emiliya stopped. It was a change so sudden that Ekaterina's foot slipped and she pushed on the brake instead. The truck slammed to a halt.

" _Solyshka_?" Ekaterina lowered her arm from Emiliya's chest, her skin slick with blood, and pushed a strand of hair away from Emiliya's face.

"Mama?" Emiliya touched Ekaterina's hand. Her eyes were green now, not the terrifying blue of before, swirled with disease and confusion.

"It's okay now,  _solnyshka_ ," she said. She wanted to sob. "We're safe now."

Emiliya reached up to touch the wounds on her mother's arm. The neckline of her dress shifted to reveal a flash of glittering gold on the taut skin of her collarbone. "It is not yet over."

"What?" Ekaterina recoiled.

Emiliya placed a hand on Ekaterina's cheek. Blood smeared along her jaw.

_"It is not yet over."_


End file.
